


Hours in the Day

by hitlikehammers



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aftercare, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Body Worship, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Bottom Steve Rogers, Caretaking, Come Eating, Come Feeding, Come as Lube, Deepthroating, Edging, Face-Sitting, Felching, Fisting, Fondue, Food Play, Hair Washing, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Marathon Sex, Multiple Orgasms, Nipple Play, Oral Sex, Playful Sex, Prostate Massage, Rimming, Rough Sex, Shower Sex, Supersoldier Stamina, Switching, Temperature Play, Top Bucky Barnes, Top Steve Rogers, Wholly Consensual (and Wildly Enthusiastic) Kink, minor exhibitionism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:33:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 30,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21623038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: It's not a dare, precisely. But it's Tony saying it—talking aboutfinally putting that serum to good use—and there's enough of a taunt in it that they can't just ignore it.Not that they'd want to ignore it. Not in the least.Or; testing the limits of supersoldier stamina (between the sheets).A supersoldier-sexing advent calendar.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 347
Kudos: 494





	1. The Instigator, or: Could Be Fun

**Author's Note:**

> This is nothing more or less than an advent calendar of sexing. Sexing, sexing, more sexing: 24 hours of stamina-stretching sexing. Not long chapters, but a chapter every day (barring something drastic). 
> 
> Enjoy.

“He was joking,” Steve tells him, still unsure of the nature of Bucky’s silence; still unable to read the look on Bucky’s face. “Just Tony being Tony.”

Because of course it was. Because Tony, being Tony, was physically incapable of passing up a chance to rib them, and turn Steve’s skin bright red in the process. Quickest way to do that was to start speculating about a supersoldier sex marathon that _finally put that serum to good use_.

Steve, predictably, responded by rivaling a tomato. Bucky had just continued eating popcorn and watching the movie. And given that it’d been the only point in the evening that he had, in fact, been quiet, Steve figures that’s likewise why he’s quiet now. But Bucky’s not normally bothered by Tony’s bullshit—usually dishes it straight back, to be honest.

Which is why Steve’s standing in front of the sink in their ensuite, watching Bucky’s reflection in the mirror, at a bit of a loss as to why Bucky’s sitting on the bed, still fully dressed, lips pressed tight together and brow furrowed just a little, staring at his hands.

“You ever thought about it?”

There’s a lot to unravel from those words, most obvious being that Steve was right about what Bucky’s caught up on. Most important, though, is the fact that Bucky doesn’t sound upset, hell, he doesn’t even sound mildly annoyed. He sounds...intrigued. Lost in consideration. And...almost earnest.

Steve turns, and leans his weight against the doorway.

“I mean, right after the serum, sure, in,” he swallows, remembering _right after_ with a bodily shiver; “in theory.” He tilts his head toward Bucky. 

“But you know that.”

“Mmm, that I do.” Bucky’s lips quirk, eyes growing darker, and Steve remembers quite vividly how Bucky’d asked after the changes that were less-conspicuous-but-of-great-interest-to-the-man-who-sucks-your-cock-Rogers. Just like he remembers Bucky being a damn angel, and giving him enough suckjobs to satisfy Steve’s elevated sexdrive and giving Bucky himself a sore enough jaw that Morita asked him if he was _sure_ he didn’t need a root canal at least every other day.

“And it’s not like I’ve ever had any reason to question our sex life.” Steve doesn’t bother stopping himself from leering a little at Bucky, eyes roaming over the mouthwateringly tempting, absolutely gorgeous frame of the man he loves.

“Me neither, _obviously_ ,” Bucky leans back, propped on the heels of his palms; knows Steve’s going to eye the stretch of his chest against his shirt hungrily, the arc of his throat. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not,” he licks his lips, and goddamn him, he presses teeth to the swell of that pout until it’s red for it, before he over-emphasizes the syllables so they’ll catch the wet shine of his mouth in the lamplight:

“Curious.”

Steve takes a second to swallow before he arches an eyebrow.

“ _Curious_ , huh?”

“Yeah.” Bucky doesn’t hesitate to eye the bare skin of Steve’s chest, pupils dilating when he gets caught on Steve’s nipples, and Steve flushes a bit at the promise in that gaze. 

“I mean, you were always so damn hellbent on pushing limits for us before you bulked up,” and that’s how Bucky always talks about Steve before the serum, like it was precisely that inconsequential to everything Steve was, everything Steve meant, and Steve adores him, he really and truly does. And he loved the way Bucky was more—if only _just_ —forgiving of Steve’s willingness to press the boundaries of his body when they were together, skin to skin and wrapped tight together; when Bucky was there to make sure the risks they took were ones that they could temper together, could see through without threat of loss. Steve’s taste for that danger may have changed with time, though it’s certainly never abandoned him, but he still liked it best when chased in Bucky’s mouth.

“And then after, hell,” Bucky exhales, whistles low around a grin and shakes his head at the memory of every stollen hand down uniform trousers, or pushing aside a collar to suck bruises just low enough, just out of sight. 

“We were tempting fate every time,” Bucky says, and god but they were and it was goddamn delicious, but even then they’d had their limits—they’d never taken it fully to bed and _god_ had Steve missed it through those years but he’d been so much more grateful just to have Bucky; and hell, maybe there’d been times he hadn’t known it as deep as he should’ve, but he’s never not been grateful for Bucky, Bucky, _Bucky_. 

“But now,” Bucky moves to stand and come toward Steve but Steve’s quicker, steps between Bucky’s legs and leans to meet his mouth and Bucky hums into it, his smile contagious as he slides hands around Steve’s back and draws him down to straddle Bucky on the bed. 

“Now, we’ve got all this,” and Bucky’s voice is low, more a whisper, a rumble, and he never breaks eye contact while he runs palms over Steve’s arms, across his chest, down the planes of his abs, toying with the waist of his jeans before he steals up again to tease over the buds of Steve’s nipples like the fiend that he is, knowing full well the whine it’ll draw from Steve’s throat, and then he frames Steve’s face, tender, all while rolling his hips and drawing out a deep groan from Steve’s chest for it:

“Now, we’ve got all _this_ ,” he repeats, a little dark and full of promise. “What d’ya say we take it for a real spin, gun it to redline.” And that smile is dangerous where it spreads; wicked and beautiful. “Could be fun.”

And Steve’s mind is distracted—and for damn good reason—and Bucky’s body is so close and his mouth is parted just so and his eyes are gleaming with intent, and he knows that Steve will cave to a little danger _every goddamn time_.

So he reaches to get Bucky’s shirt off as Bucky starts work on Steve’s pants, both of them working their way up the bed before Steve leans down, stripped bare against Bucky’s still annoyingly-clothed lower half, and whispers against Bucky’s lips:

“Could be fun.”


	2. For the Sake of Being Thorough; (.75, 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So are we timing this, or counting orgasms?” Steve asks, reaching to grasp Bucky’s forearms, ready to flip them and take the lead.
> 
> “I’d say both,” Bucky pretends to ponder, just for show. “For the sake of being thorough.”

Steve wakes in a soft haze, all lazy heat and low fire in his belly, and his lips turn upward, slow, as he recognizes the sensation.

His hips only move the slightest bit into Bucky’s ministrations, Bucky’s lips around the middle of his cock, though Steve’s wet to the root, evidence that he’d been deeper not long before as Bucky exhales in calculated huffs to tease the spit-slick skin, to send tremors up Steve’s spine as he works his tongue along the shaft, tracing veins and swallowing hard enough around the head to roll Steve’s eyes back and steal his breath. And yet, it’s slow enough, leisurely and sure and so well-worn, so familiar and natural and innate, that Steve can just feel, can surrender himself to the trembling need, the near-existential bliss that consumes him as Bucky licks and sucks and hums around his length, every motion practiced, devoted, but above all: it undoes Steve from the core of him, the soul of him outward, the burn rising through his chest as he rocks softly into Bucky’s mouth, fists hands in rumpled sheets, and moans at the back of his throat, the sound peaking at a fevered keen for the way Bucky takes him apart like he was born for it, and maybe he was. 

Maybe they were.

Steve forces a hand to unclench and reach to slide through Bucky’s soft hair. He’s close—close in a way that unravels quietly, and perhaps all the more devastating for it; he’s going to melt into the bed, he’s going to rip at the seams, he’s going to—

He comes down Bucky’s throat, long until he’s spent, a little boneless, grinning breathlessly at the ceiling as he tries to catch his breath.

“Mmm,” he finally hums, relishing the way Bucky’s mouthing up his chest and nipping at the base of his throat. “That’s a nice surprise. Buttering me up for some reason, Barnes?”

Steve can damn near feel Bucky’s eye roll before he claims Steve’s lips, hard and fast and full, and Steve’s can taste himself on Bucky’s tongue and he moans for it, chases after the way Bucky’s teeth graze his lips, the way Bucky’s hand flattens against the hard bud of his nipple, playing idly with the sensitive flesh.

“You say that like I don’t wake you up with my mouth on your dick at least half the days I’m up before you,” Bucky chides, close enough that his lips drag against Steve’s when he speaks.

“And you being up before me is, in itself, a surprise.”

Bucky snorts.

“Asshole.”

Steve shrugs; quirks a brow. “You can move onto that next.”

Bucky leans back down and kisses him until he has to catch his breath again, and Steve likes that far better than egging Bucky on any further. At least for now.

“Got plans for today?” Bucky finally pulls back to ask, and maybe Steve leans up, tries to follow the savour of that mouth, but Bucky’s leaned too far, anticipating Steve’s greedy play.

Bastard.

“Not really,” Steve says, flopping back onto the bed. “Was going to go for a run with Sam, get breakfast.”

“Nope,” Bucky pops the last syllable. “Dear Samuel’s caught himself a cold. He texted.”

“Oh,” Steve frowns. “we should—“

“Already taken care of,” Bucky anticipates his thoughts, as he so often does. “Ordered him chicken noodle and that amazing matzo ball they do at the place across from Sacchetti’s.” Steve loves that Bucky even describes the little cafe based on proximity, because they both know that, for as much as they love the soup, Steve can’t remember the name of the place to save his life. “They’ll deliver it in time for lunch.”

“Look at you, on top of shit,” Steve widens his eyes like it’s shocking, when in fact Bucky’s usually on top of shit.

Case in point: he moves back in and straddles Steve’s hips commandingly, all authority and poise to the point of distraction, his grin predatory as Steve’s dick twitches at the weight of him.

“Yep,” Bucky bats his lashes, and Steve reaches to grab what he can of Bucky’s ass and squeeze.

“You’re a menace,” Steve hisses, pulse already heavy again near his collarbones, inching upward. 

“Oh yeah,” Bucky nods enthusiastically; “absolutely.”

Steve can’t help but breathe out a laugh.

“So,” Bucky draws out the word; “I guess you _don’t_ have plans for today.”

“Guess not,” Steve’s eyes narrow just slightly, trying to read Bucky’s intent. “Are you saying you’d like to remedy that?”

Bucky considers him for a moment, smirk shifting as he braces open palms on Steve’s chest, eyes bright enough that Steve’s breath starts coming quicker for the promise in them.

“Think you’d like to take that serum for a spin?” Bucky says, voice low, and Steve’s heart trips as he puts two and two together, as he remembers Tony’s flippant comment and the conversation that had followed: _could be fun_ , and oh. 

_Oh_.

“I,” Steve swallows hard around his suddenly dry mouth; around the banging pulse now fully in his throat: “I think I could pencil that in.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “So magnanimous.”

Steve pushes up against Bucky’s hands and stretches to reach his mouth, only close enough to brush against it but he exhales, hot to the touch: “We on the clock?”

Bucky smirks, and Steve loves the shape of it against his lips, loves the raw want it stokes between his ribs; against his thighs. 

“You came, so,” he raises his brows wantonly; “I started at ten ‘til.” 

“So are we timing this, or counting orgasms?” Steve asks, reaching to grasp Bucky’s forearms, ready to flip them and take the lead.

“I’d say both,” Bucky pretends to ponder, just for show. “For the sake of being thorough.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Steve damn near growls, because Bucky’s still flushed, Bucky’s lips are still red, and Steve goddamn can’t resist him now that the intent is voiced, is real, is undeniable and ready to touch. “Can never be too thorough.”

“No,” Bucky presses Steve down to the mattress, the force of it enough to push the breath from Steve’s lungs before Bucky’s words, shaped close below the shell of his ear, steal the rest of the breath that’s left: 

“Not ever.”

And then Bucky’s sliding down Steve’s body, and it takes Steve a moment to process it, but when he does he frowns, trying to get a look at Bucky’s face where Bucky’s nosing at the trail of hair leading toward his groin.

“Where’re you going?” Steve asks, and it comes out as half a whine that he can’t even muster embarrassment for. Bucky props his chin onto Steve’s abs and grins before he moves in an instant, rough hands grabbing at Steve’s thighs and pushing them up before he dives down, sinking low to lick a hot stripe up the cleft of Steve’s ass.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Steve arches with the touch, and Bucky laughs even as he’s tonguing into the crease, mouthing almost tauntingly at the hole until Steve whimpers.

“I believe you suggested I make my way here?” Bucky murmurs, as soon as Steve’s writhing enough to be beyond forming words in reply. “Just following instructions.”

And that son of a bitch, he’s got Steve slick enough from just his mouth to press a fingertip in just the slightest bit, just the perfect tease with only an edge of burn—just the right amount for Steve to get off on it, still high off coming down Bucky’s throat—alternating between warm metal and searing tongue until Steve feels like his chest is going to collapse into itself, like his heart’s going to burn to ash, and for all that Steve came almost leisurely for Bucky’s mouth on his cock before, he spills hard and endless now, only half-aware of Bucky’s mouth on the globes of his ass, pressing open lips to the loose ring of muscle left blissfully raw from his lavishing—from the deft play of his hands: his perfect mouth.

“That’s two,” Bucky grins against the split of his ass like the shameless motherfucker he is, and it takes Steve a gasping breath or two to surface from the pleasure enough to squint at the clock and toss back:

“And less than an hour in,” he gasps, and Bucky laughs against his stomach, but also doesn’t miss the opportunity to run teeth sharp against the skin, and hell if it’s not the best damn feeling in the entire world.


	3. Take Care of That Appetite; (1, 8)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky’s lips are on him, his hands on Steve’s body in a way that crushes them together almost painfully, and Steve loves it, it’s the fucking air he breathes, to be wrapped around Bucky in every way possible, to lick into Bucky’s mouth and feel the moan on his tongue, to feel the minute spark of it tighten in Steve’s ass and it’s goddamn exquisite, is what it is. Steve could die like this and for the first time in all his many years, every life he’s lived between: he’d die happy. 
> 
> “I’m onto you,” Bucky speaks wet against Steve’s lips, and Steve closed his eyes at some point and is loath to open them, drunk on the feeling of that mouth on his own: “you just wanted me to shut you up.”
> 
> Steve’s lips curl as he lifts his lashes in the way he knows goes straight to Bucky’s dick. 
> 
> “Maybe.”

Steve moans around Bucky’s fingers, damn near wantonly, swirling his tongue around them and sucking hard. 

“How long _have_ you been up?” 

Bucky grins as he pulls his hand from Steve's mouth and reaches for the plate on the table; he’s apparently flipped enough pancakes to feed a small army—precisely the amount Steve needs in the morning to comfortably last him to lunch—and maybe Steve is loving the way Bucky’s ripping bits and pieces off to feed Steve, swiping them across the tub of butter and then soaking them in the maple syrup they damn near keep on tap before teasing them across Steve’s bottom lip and tracing his mouth until Steve’s ready to clean his fingers: arguably the sweetest part. 

Bucky grins a little wolfishly. “I mean, about five minutes?”

Steve snorts, loudly, and buries his face in Bucky's neck as he giggles, pushing his hips down with a little extra force against the stiff evidence of just how _up_ Bucky is. 

“That was terrible,” he groans, but he grins into Bucky’s skin nonetheless, his lips grazing hot and sugar-sticky against Bucky’s throat. 

And, in truth: it’s also possible that Steve’s loving the way he’s getting fed while he’s keeping a tortuously slow rhythm on Bucky’s lap, riding that cock with a blessedly-powerful command over his legs that lets him keep balanced and on pace almost without thinking, and while thoroughly savoring the stretch with each thrust as much as the sweetness of the flapjacks; the distinct, mouthwatering flavor of Bucky’s skin on his tongue. 

“ _You’re_ terrible.” Bucky leans in and bites at the corner of Steve’s mouth in lieu of more pancake, and Steve chases him to return the favor. 

“Be nice to me,” Steve warns; “I’ve got your dick in my ass. I am personally in charge of whether or not you come before I finish that pancake.”

“And I’m in charge of feeding you that pancake,” Bucky volleys, changing direction with one of the last pieces from Steve’s mouth to his own, chewing triumphantly: “so I feel like we’re square.”

Steve scoffs, already bottomed out on Bucky’s cock and Steve grinds against his balls just enough to draw a moan. 

“One of those things,” Steve murmurs against the pout of Bucky’s lips, tasting the syrup he’d been denied off Bucky’s teeth: “is not like the other.”

“Eh,” Bucky shrugs, though Steve can see he’s working to school his expression given the pressure of Steve’s ass at his groin. “I feel like the stash of PowerBars and shitty chocolate in the bottom drawer of the dresser speaks pretty highly of how hangry your ass gets after sex.” He rolls his hips up in emphasis, leaning in just against Steve’s collarbone and dragging the rough of his beard against the curve and Steve groans for both, head tipping back—goddamn him, but Bucky knows him too well, knows how to play his body, how to drag sounds and sensations out of him in the barest of moments, with the slightest-perfect things. 

“Poor phrasing,” Steve shoots back, breathy as hell as he clenches around Bucky’s length; he’s growing painfully fucking hard himself against Bucky’s stomach where his come’s already dried to the skin more than once over; but hell if he lets pleasure—no matter how dizzying—stop him from razzing Bucky when the opportunity presents itself. 

“Totally intentional,” Bucky murmurs to the space between his clavicle just as he ghosts a touch against the swell of Steve’s ass below where Bucky’s buried inside, and he grins as he feels the shiver that runs through Steve’s body for it, not least for the way that it trembles in Steve’s muscles, stretched around Bucky’s cock: “plus, look at my amazing foresight! Two birds,” he rocks up into Steve as he dips more pancake in syrup and places it just on Steve’s lip for him to bite at. 

“Oh,” Steve rolls his eyes as he chews; “James Barnes, you’re _so_ smart, so _impressive_ , I can’t even—”

And then Bucky’s lips are on him, hands on Steve’s body in a way that crushes them together almost painfully, and Steve loves it, it’s the fucking air he breathes, to be wrapped around Bucky in every way possible, to lick into Bucky’s mouth and feel the moan on his tongue, to feel the minute spark of it tighten in Steve’s ass and it’s goddamn exquisite, is what it is. Steve could die like this and for the first time in all his many years, every life he’s lived between: he’d die happy. 

“I’m onto you,” Bucky speaks wet against Steve’s lips, and Steve closed his eyes at some point and is loath to open them, drunk on the feeling of that mouth on his own: “you just wanted me to shut you up.”

Steve’s lips curl as he lifts his lashes in the way he knows goes straight to Bucky’s dick. 

“Maybe.” 

Because it happens that Steve also knows Bucky too well: he knows that Bucky wishes he’d realized earlier in life that he could silence Steve with his mouth, in a good many ways, better than he could any other way. It would have made their teenage years far easier on Bucky’s nerves, or so he enjoys telling Steve when he’s being dramatic as hell. 

“Or else, y'know,” Steve tacks on, almost blasé as he keeps up the slow lift-and-drop on Bucky’s dick. “Mock you and get your mouth on me.” 

And it’s Steve’s turn to take Bucky’s mouth, to tongue sharp and purposeful between his lips, hellbent on drinking his fill of Bucky’s taste, the sugar-musk that permeates his whole body when they’re like this, when they’re fucked fine and soft for it, needy with it, and have the luxury of telling the world to fuck off so they can do nothing but sate that ache. 

“Two birds.” Steve whispers, pulling back only enough that Bucky has to chase the sound to swallow it, because Steve’s not above the thrill of being pursued blindly, like he’s singularly essential in this world. Like he’s singularly essential to _Bucky’s_ world, specifically. 

They breathe close for long moments, and Steve doesn’t realize straight off but he’s moving quicker, and Bucky has to tilt his head to follow the pace as Steve rides him, not fast but hard in his way nonetheless, and Bucky’s breath is starting to come short, and chest lifting fast and just this side of shaky. 

“You close?” Steve murmurs, bringing a hand to Bucky’s sternum and sliding it up sinuously to cup Bucky’s cheek. 

“Oh yeah,” Bucky gasps, left hand searing a bruise at Steve’s hip, wanting and resisting the urge to grab and lift and set the pace himself. 

“That’s what,” Steve asks, going just a hairsbreadth faster every time he sinks down, voice growing thin as his cock twitches between their abs. “Three?”

“Four.” Oh, god. The idea to fuck through breakfast had been a non-issue—can’t have breaks in a test of stamina—but Steve hasn’t quite realized just how hot, how wet, how desperate he’s been in holding to the chair and to Bucky in turns for what feels like minutes and hours all at once; he hadn’t been wholly aware of the stretch, the looseness of his hold around Bucky’s dick. He moans, and the sound is punched out of his body by the force of his own heartbeat as the wave of it all hits him hard, and then Bucky’s there, holding him tighter like he can read it, like he knows the overwhelming rush, and then he's speaking to the line of Steve’s neck:

“You’re so fucking full.” 

And Steve kind of wants to push it, kind of wants to milk a fifth out of Bucky and into his ass, let it drip all the more when he pulls up slams back down on Bucky’s cock, slick against the backs of his thighs, trailing down the legs of the chair and pooling on the floor; he kind of wants the sound of it to be loud enough, the press of the sheer weight of Bucky’s release against the pressure of his dick, to be loud enough to catch over the way his pulse is racing, wants it to be warm enough when it leaks out to rival the way his muscles are just starting to aching for the angle he’s driving at—he can feel Bucky getting close, so fucking close and if Steve can hold his own climax off for just a few minutes after then he knows he can move just right to wring a fifth from Bucky’s body when he’s limp and spent, he _knows_ it. 

“We might need to take this to the shower, after,” Steve mouths, breathy, because he’ll be a mess by then, a fucking _wreck_ , and Bucky’s right there sucking at the line of his jaw. 

“Or I can have breakfast,” he breathes beneath Steve’s bottom lip and Steve shudders for the feeling, but also for the words. 

“You don’t,” Steve starts, eyes wide as he tries to focus on Bucky’s face through the way his orgasm’s building fierce in his belly, white behind his eyes: Bucky’s not opposed, exactly, to eating his own come out of Steve, but he’s not enamoured of the process like Steve is, because Steve fucking adores it, loves how it combines their tastes and lets him suck at Bucky’s ass when that ass is damn well ravaged, lets him soothe and coax and gentle Bucky down from the ledge in that way feels powerful; feels intimate and filthy and wild and right and fuck, Steve loves it.

But Bucky offering is, is—

“I’m feeling adventurous,” Bucky grins, his mouth solid and unfaltering at the curve of his throat; against the heavy thrum of Steve’s pulse beneath as it skips a bit before rushing headlong all the faster at those words alone. 

“God,” Steve chokes out, because that’s hot as hell, and it feels like a gift somehow Steve’s not sure it’s meant to, but he'll take it anyway. 

“You like that, Stevie?” Bucky teases, wanton, voice low and gravelly and lighting in Steve’s veins. 

“I think,” and Steve knows it’s a gamble, but he’s alight with it, and fuck if that ever stopped him anyway; “think I’m still hungry,”

“You ate the whole batch,” Bucky glances at the table, woefully empty of pancakes, and Steve nips at Bucky’s chin and rides him just a little harder. 

“ _We_ ate the whole batch,” he hisses as Bucky’s right grip on Steve’s hip moves and draws a soft, barely-there scratch down his side: intoxicating. 

“But not what I meant,” Steve gasps, and looks at Bucky until he meets Steve’s eyes, and Bucky’s own dilate when he gets the message, when he sees the vision Steve’s broadcasting: of Bucky feeding his own release to Steve, sucking it from Steve and gathering it on his tongue from Steve’s thighs and tonguing it into Steve’s mouth like the unapologetic glutton Steve is. 

“Mmm,” Bucky hums, and takes Steve’s mouth as Steve lifts off of him, and Bucky cuts the breath in his lungs by following Steve’s retreat with a thrust of his hips, leaving Steve to falter, to fall with open palms into Bucky’s chest to recover his rhythm as Bucky growls into the shell of his ear:

“Think I can take care of that appetite, yeah.”


	4. What’s Yours is Mine; (.75, 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Shush,” Bucky exhales against Steve’s throat, biting the skin until Steve lets out a hiss. “Let me take care of you without you running your fucking trap. You’re so much easier to like when you’re quiet.”

“Fuck, that’s cold!”

Steve, admittedly, isn’t paying much attention when he steps under the spray: he’s in that uncomfortable middle ground between feeling warm and full and content with Bucky’s come still in him, and feeling really fucking disgusting for the way it’s drying at the back of his thighs, pulling at the hair on his legs and generally robbing him of all the fantastic, mindless, half-suspended sensations he loves so much. So he jumps under the water without thinking and holy _hell_ is it cold. Mind-numbing, skin-searing, dick-shrivelling cold. 

He’d pick the dried come over that shit any day. 

But then Bucky’s low laughter rumbles close to his back, the huff of the sound landing just against his shoulder blade, and Steve not-so-secretly loves that sound more than life, and his eyes fall closed for a second and he sways a little toward Bucky’s warmth and no, it’s not only because the water’s fucking freezing. Not that Steve will say that out loud. 

Not that Bucky needs him to. 

“It has to heat up, dumbass,” Bucky leans in, pressing lips just below Steve’s ear while pushing him into the shower for a net-value of zero, because sweet kiss plus asshole move cancel each other out. And it only does so evenly because Steve loves Bucky’s lips so much—loves Bucky so much—that he’s biased in the jerk’s favor. 

This, however, does not stop Steve from reaching back to grab Bucky’s hand and drag him under the spray along with him while it's still just shy of hypothermic. 

“Hey!” Bucky splutters, and Steve captures his lips while grinning wide. 

“What’s yours is mine, right?” Steve quips with a cheeky grin, and Bucky just glares, but soaked as he already is, it only reads as adorable. 

“I hate you,” Bucky grouses, but doesn’t even bother pausing to let the words have any effect before he grabs behind Steve’s thighs and lifts; Steve knows this dance well enough, tests the floor for purchase before he springs up to wrap legs around Bucky’s waist while Bucky takes the rest of Steve’s weight entirely on his left arm. They lean in tandem to kiss, hard and long and full so that Steve can damn well feel the way his lips swell for the onslaught and it’s heady, it’s intoxicating, and when Bucky’s right hand cards through Steve’s sweaty locks, slides to trace the line of his spine, cups to cradle the curve of his ass, Steve just hums and leans further into Bucky’s hold, and while the buzz of being thoroughly fucked out has mostly faded, the high of Bucky’s firm grip, Bucky’s careful fingers slipping against the tender flesh of Steve’s ass, gentling the sweet ache into something deeper, it’s almost profound; soothing Steve’s body in a way only Bucky knows, only Bucky can, only Bucky could ever learn and be trusted to hold. 

“That sure feels like hating me, yep,” Steve snarks, but it’s on a shaky breath as Bucky massages the globe of his ass, thumbs the crack almost delicately as he mouths down Steve’s throat, sucking bruises there for every wrecked splay of Steve’s body he’s stroking over like silk to calm, intent on easing where Steve fucked himself stupid on Bucky’s cock and Steve relishes the tenderness, but bristles all the same at the idea of losing the ruinous edge at the brim of his consciousness, the visceral reminder of Bucky’s body in his body, of the feel of him and the shape. 

“Shush,” Bucky exhales against Steve’s throat, biting the skin until Steve lets out a hiss. “Let me take care of you without you running your fucking trap. You’re so much easier to like when you’re quiet.”

He shifts his hold on Steve’s body, switches the arm that supports Steve’s frame where he’s curled around Bucky, weight thrown against Bucky’s solid chest and entirely at the mercy of the rhythm of his breath against Steve’s own: he holds Steve on his right arm, now, and brings his left hand to Steve’s mouth to wet his fingers, which Steve does without a second’s hesitation, reveling in the smoothness, the soft articulation of the metal and the subtle tang of it on his tongue, and maybe he whines just a little when Bucky takes them out before Steve’s ready, before he’s finished.

 _Maybe_. 

He chases those fingers, but he’s not quick enough; he goes for Bucky’s chin instead, tonguing at the roguish dimple, licking up the sharp line of his jaw. 

And then Bucky’s playing with Steve’s hole, slick vibranium like a balm and a live wire, like a blessing and fuel to ignite, and Steve gasps out what breath is in his lungs and struggles to find more as he rolls into the touch, shameless and so fucking needy. 

“Don’t think,” Steve chokes out; “don’t think I can pull off quiet with you,” and Bucky’s touch doesn’t breach him, and Steve appreciates the intention but hates the result: Steve’ll have healed all traces of Bucky inside him soon enough, and he wants more to replace what he’ll lose.

“Can’t keep quiet with you doing that,” he whispers, and writhes, and _wants_. 

“Hmm,” Bucky tilts his head, grinning devilishly: “I’ll give you a pass.”

And then Bucky’s left hand is gone from Steve’s ass, and he whimpers for it; and then his right hand is easing Steve to his feet and Steve moans because he craves the contact, craves the tenderness and the touch, but then Bucky’s watching him, staring into him in that way that makes Steve feel more exposed, far more naked than his body alone could ever be and it’s never failed to steal his breath and it doesn’t fail now: then he’s watching Bucky sink to his knees, never breaking his gaze, hands sliding over Steve’s chest, Steve’s sides, Steve’s hips until Bucky’s nosing at the curls at Steve’s groin, letting his lower lip play at Steve’s mostly-stiff length, dragging languid over the swollen-smooth shaft and closing in a kiss every few millimetres, pressing purses lips at every line of a vein; every time he breathes in. 

“ _Jesus_ ,” Steve exhales shaky, but before he can sink into the sensation and give himself over to it, Bucky’s moving again, nosing Steve’s cock upward, sliding between Steve’s legs and mouthing back along his taint, and Steve shivers with it, threatens to shake apart and then Bucky’s pressing his lips at the very base of his ass, tongue laving the crease like a benediction, like something beautiful and Steve feels it hot beneath his sternum, caught in the weight of his pulse and fuck, _fuck_ —

He’s not sure how long Bucky lavishes his skin, how long Bucky’s tongue traces the cleft and curve of him; but he is sure that his dick’s too hard to think clearly for it, and he’s sure that his thighs are trembling too hard to keep him upright much longer, and he’s sure he’s so goddamn in love that it could kill him, and so he’s pawing at Bucky’s body before he consciously decides to move, any stray limb he can reach and Bucky pulls back, twists and meets his eyes again and once more, that gaze undoes him. 

“Get up here,” Steve rasps, hands gripping Bucky’s shoulders so tight that the water-reddened skin turns white under the touch. 

“Not done,” Bucky frowns up at him, petulant and teasing but Steve’s insistent; Steve’s dead-set and won’t change course. 

“Get _up_ here.” And Bucky’s doesn’t fight, lets still pulls him up and wrap him close for all of a heartbeat before Steve latched lips at the base of Bucky’s throat and sinks down in a wet stripe to Bucky’s crotch. 

“Steve,” Bucky says, soft and wondering, and Steve just grins up at him, playing with his fingertips before he presses lips beneath Bucky’s navel.

“How ‘bout you let me take care of _you_ ,” he speaks against Bucky’s abs, and he counts three shaky breaths pressed there before he wraps hands around and palms Bucky’s ass, mouth moving further down. 

“God,” Bucky groans as Steve licks down his cock, rolls Bucky’s balls along the flat of his tongue, shaping his cheeks and sucking just so to create a playful rhythm without bringing his hands away from Bucky’s ass once. 

“That’s so goddamn hot,” Bucky breathes, and Steve presses his grin to the tightening roundness against his mouth, stays there and breathes in, drags the line of his nose against the sac before he moves in an instant, takes Bucky’s length down his throat in one desperate, purposeful motion that cuts Bucky’s breath short, and fills Steve with a soul-searing heat. 

“Fucking gorgeous, Stevie,” Bucky murmurs, and Steve loves this, Steve _loves_ this, when Bucky gets breathless, when his lashes fan and his cheeks flush and his mouth goes slack and words spill free, all blood-rich with arousal, with ecstasy, with _feeling_. 

“Fucking fit perfect in that filthy mouth of yours,” he murmurs, foggy with it like floating and it seeps just the same through Steve’s skin, effervescent: “nothing for it, you were made for this, made for me,” his hand traces the bones of Steve’s face and Steve leans into the touch like it’s magentic, like there’s nothing else in the whole world he could possibly do: “mine, you glorious bastard, you—”

“Yours,” Steve pulls off and moans, hot and breathy against the wetness his mouth’s left on Bucky’s cock, panting against it and watching the way it glistens, the way it twitches with Steve’s every gasp and it’s incredible: it makes Steve feel lit up from inside, makes him feel weak, makes his mouth water. 

“Come for me, Buck,” he glances up at Bucky through his lashes and he sees the moment Bucky’s starts to break, and Steve’s mouth is on him, stretched around the head with his tongue poised at the slit to catch and taste and swallow down with a giddy fever he can’t explain but knows in his bones, feels wholly like it could shift the earth’s poles, could draw electric through the heavens: _Jesus_ , Steve can’t fucking breathe, it’s so big in that moment, hot down his throat. 

“Shit,” Bucky exhales, scattered and frayed and beautiful: “ _shit_.”

And Steve pulls his mouth off, sinful, and Bucky reaches with unsteady hands for Steve’s fingertips, for Steve’s body. 

“Come here,” he breathes, and Steve stands in an instant, and his mouth is on Bucky’s because Bucky’s is waiting and Steve wants nothing more than to taste him there, too, and to bask in it.

The water grows cold again, but neither of them notice.


	5. Creating a Monster; (.5, 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Big strong man,” Bucky teases breathily, grinning wide up at Steve and Steve wants to admire him, sprawled like that and stunning, but hell if he’s going to let Bucky mock him unchallenged, and so Steve’s on him between heartbeats, straddling his middle and pressing their hips together and pitching forward with single-mindedness and a clear goal, palms braced against said goal with practiced precision as he drags his hands down before taking the rising buds of Bucky’s nipples against his thumbs.

There’re still drops of water running down their skin, hair still mostly wet from nothing more than a cursory fluff with a towel before Steve had grabbed Bucky’s hands and dragged him to the bed, pushing him down hard enough to leave the springs bouncing his gloriously naked frame against the sheets. 

“Big strong man,” Bucky teases breathily, grinning wide up at Steve and Steve wants to admire him, sprawled like that and stunning, but hell if he’s going to let Bucky mock him unchallenged, and so Steve’s on him between heartbeats, straddling his middle and pressing their hips together and leaning forward with single-mindedness and a clear goal, palms braced against said goal with practiced precision as he drags his hands down before taking the rising buds of Bucky’s nipples against his thumbs.

“I created a monster, didn’t I?” Bucky laughs, but it’s already strained, and yes: he absolutely did. Because Bucky was the one who’d always been sensitive, always liked his nipples played with—and Steve hadn’t been opposed to having his touched, but it hadn’t been so much more enjoyable than anything else he’d ever tried. So it was to his great surprise when Bucky'd decided to suck at his nipples one day and Steve came untouched within minutes. Came hard, too, all bright and glittery behind his eyes and shit.

And after all this time, Bucky still likes to rib him about it, but hell is Steve even cares, because _fuck_ he likes when Bucky plays with his chest.

That said, Steve had _always_ loved playing with Bucky’s, so it never has, never will, and certainly doesn’t now come as a surprise when he circles Bucky’s left nipple and sucks the right tight between pursed lips with as much force as he can muster until Bucky arches into the press of Steve’s mouth; until Steve can feel the pounding blood beneath his tongue when he licks to the left and lets his hand slide to the wet nub he leaves abandoned at the right; and part of him, when he does this, is always trying to even the playing field: it’s a longstanding aim of Steve’s to make _Bucky_ come from just getting his nipples trashed, and yes, fine. It’s an open wound that Steve still hasn’t managed it yet.

Bucky’s grinning at him, but it’s both amused and warm and Steve doesn’t want to melt for it, but he has to. It’s written somewhere in the laws of the universe, he thinks, that Steve Rogers will never be able to resist that look, those eyes, that smile.

“You gonna keep me waiting?” Bucky asks, and Steve pouts a little, because Steve’s being _very nice_ to Bucky’s chest right now, but if he’s honest, he would rather be a little bit mean to Bucky’s ass instead, and given the way Bucky’s lifting that ass off the bed Steve figures his mind’s going in the same direction, so Steve wets a finger and presses at Bucky’s hole—but no further.

“I should keep you waiting,” Steve snarks. “Teach you some patience.”

Bucky’s face doesn’t change, his expression doesn’t shift, but he cants his hips so the momentum presses Steve just past the rim, far enough that Bucky can clench and draw him in, and god, it’s fucking hot but unexpected, and Steve can’t help but jump a little for it.

“ _Jesus_ ,” he hisses, though he’s quick to make the most of his situation, circling and stretching and sliding in and out, and it’s then that Bucky’s eyes grow bright, pupils wide.

“In, Stevie,” he growls, and fuck if that sound doesn’t go straight to Steve’s groin: “get in.”

“Now who’s impatient?” Steve tries to jibe, but it’s a lost cause: Steve’s breathless, because the fire in that gaze and the rumble of that voice—

“In,” Bucky repeats: “now.”

“Bossy,” Steve chides, but it’s flimsy. “Let me,” he starts to hedge, because much as he wants nothing more than to be buried in Bucky’s ass right now, he needs another finger in, at least, needs Bucky looser than this, he— 

“In.”

And Bucky’s growl is sharp, this time. His right hand is at Steve’s wrist pulling his finger from Bucky’s ass, while his left is tugging at Steve's dick and Steve follows on instinct as Bucky leads the head to his only-just stretched hole.

“ _Now_.”

And Steve doesn’t hesitate, because he knows Bucky, and he knows that tone: he knows that _Bucky_ knows what that tone does to _him_ , on top of everything, and there’s no question, no holding back. Steve will do anything that voice tells him to, gladly and without a thought.

So he pushes in.

And Steve moans, and Bucky sighs almost gratefully, because Bucky knew exactly what he was doing, because he’s smarter than Steve sometimes; has more foresight at least: he likes to feel it as much as Steve does, and wants it to last when their bodies are both too primed to take it from them, far too quick once they’re done. And Steve is mostly left to lament it, wishes he could feel the well-fucked heaviness in his limbs, the sting in his ass, but Bucky holds the world in his hands and makes it so, makes Steve sink inside him too soon, but perfectly timed if Bucky wants it to hurt enough to hold on to just that little bit longer, that little bit that means the world and damn him, _damn him_ : but he’s perfect.

“You like it as much as I do.”

“Shut up,” Steve huffs, pulling out slow, tortuous as Bucky inhales around what Steve knows is a fairly steady burn.

“Say it,” Bucky presses anyway. Steve rolls his eyes, and pushes in hard, fast, enough to force a weightless little sound from Bucky’s lips.

Steve quirks a brow. “Shut _up_.”

Bucky looks up at him innocently, but clenches down around his length in a way that’s anything but and Steve’s thighs shake, his angle slips, and he groans before he spits out:

“ _God_ , yes, yes, okay, I love it, I fucking love it,” Steve thrusts in near-manically, because goddamn this man, but Steve does. Steve loves fucking Bucky a little raw, a little unprepared, first and foremost because _Bucky_ loves it, but second, and a close second at that...

“Tell me what you love about it,” Bucky eggs him, sweet on a gasp and Steve wouldn’t be able to deny him if he tried.

“You’re so tight,” Steve admits, because yes, _yes_ , and he can feel his pulse like a battering ram for the pressure of Bucky’s walls against his dick, can close his eyes and map the shape of Bucky’s body for the way the blood throbs through Steve’s veins where he's pressed in Bucky’s hole.

“Yeah,” Bucky moans, lips parted. “Yeah,” he nods, and his hands slide from Steve’s sides down toward the swell of Steve’s ass. “Keep going.”

“So tight, so close around me,” Steve starts to get into the words, now; the rhythm of his thrusts getting practiced as he finds the right roll of his hips to send Bucky gasping each time Steve bottoms out. “Love watching your ass fuckin’ devour me, love how you’re so goddam desperate for it, how your mouth goes,” and he reaches, traces Bucky’s lips where they’re loose and stretched wide, chest heaving but the breaths that escape are small and choked, not for the sake of control, but for the sake of undoing, and Steve will never get enough of that mindless, prayerful pleasure on Bucky’s face; never get enough of what it means that _Steve_ gets to put it there, that only he knows _just_ how.

“I love how everything in you is laid bare when I’m filling you, like I can feel, feel everything about you, like I’m held, held,” and oh, Steve knows this part; the longer he rocks into Bucky’s body, the less his own control, his own ability to think is something he can hold to: his tongue gets drunk on the way Bucky’s heat is like nothing in the whole world, the way Steve fits within it, the way he moves.

“Yes,” Bucky makes the shapes of the words with his mouth more than he makes any sound, but Steve sees it; it’s Bucky, and Steve will always see it. “Stevie—”

“Inside you,” he gasps, sinking deep as he murmurs; “fuckin’ love being inside you, Buck.” 

“Love you in me,” Bucky babbles, a little punchdrunk; “love how you feel,” he gasps as Steve pulls out to just the tip before driving back in: “the stretch, how it lasts, the fuckin’ burn and the way you, I...”

“I’m close, Buck,” Steve gasps, and Bucky’s hands are clawing at him, squeezing his ass with a finger sliding between the cheeks seeming without thought: but somehow, Bucky’s more put together, just a little, just enough to process the words and reply like he understands, like it makes sense when Steve’s head is spiraling into white noise and simmering warmth.

“I know it,” Bucky breathes, and Steve trembles, is putting all his effort into keeping his rhythm, into not letting his hips start jerking out of his control because he wants more, just a little more and he—

“Come with me?” The words are out before he can clear his mind, before he can consciously decide to say them; the words are soft and pleading and Steve doesn’t quite know where they came from and Bucky’s fingertips at his hole pause, and then retreat and Steve’s breathing hitches for the loss but then Bucky's holding onto Steve’s hips, tight, and his voice is wrecked:

“Slow down,” Bucky says, and Steve is confused until Bucky’s eyes meet his and they’re so open, they’re hazy with arousal and impending release but also ready to give and of course Bucky will match him, here, pace for pace as always, of course he does.

“Slow down so I can,” and holy _fuck_ if that isn’t hot every single time Steve fails to think enough to keep the words in; every single time Bucky meets him in tandem and Steve doesn’t know if he can slow down, he doesn’t know if he can—

The answer, quickly, becomes clear that no, Steve can’t, but Steve can reach between them and grab Bucky’s dick and work it quicker, harder, twisting near the base and gentling to the tip just like he knows pushes Bucky over the edge when he’s close, and Steve’s thrusts are deep then shallow, weighty then weak and he’s shaking, the wave of it starting to take him down but he swallows, hard, and jerks Bucky harder.

“Steve,” Bucky moans; “god,” and Steve feels the way Bucky’s cock jerks in his hand and he exhales, squeezing once and begging just a moment more.

“Hold on, hold on, we’ll—” and then Steve’s falling forward onto Bucky’s chest, only just braced above Bucky’s own spilling cock as Steve comes inside Bucky, shakes with the force of it but also for the feeling of Bucky’s release on Steve’s skin where he’s pitched close—and the image of it roped white up Bucky’s stomach, splashed near his still-hard nipples: Steve’s panting hard, sheathed in Bucky’s warmth and satisfied, but hell, hell:

Oh, _hell_ if that sight doesn’t turn him on enough to makes his dick twitch in interest, still buried in Bucky’s ass.


	6. Saw It In a Porn Scene; (.5, 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Just because you saw it in a porn scene doesn’t mean it’s feasible in real life,_ Bucky told him, the first time he mentioned it with Bucky’s stupidly-distracting pecs fisted against his palms. Steve had scoffed and opened his mouth to protest, but Bucky had anticipated it quick.
> 
>  _Feasible for you, idiot. For us. I mean, they’re impressive,_ Bucky admitted with a quirk of a brow, a shrug of a shoulder, and a twitch of the muscle beneath Steve’s hands that made Steve’s cock leak and drew a moan so sharp it _hurt_ from his throat; _but there are some physiological limitations to consider._

Steve damn near feels his pupils dilate, if that possible; he _absolutely_ feels his pulse stutter, finding its footing again at triple the pace as the sight of Bucky’s own come high on Bucky’s chest makes something in him ravenous, makes his mouth dry and his throat tight and every inch of his skin feel stretched to breaking, burning alive. 

Steve looks at Bucky, meets his eyes and knows his gaze is pleading, just a little: knows it’s hungry to the point of starvation, and there’s no hiding it when Steve’s this far gone, and even if there were, Bucky could read it on him in a heartbeat; the fast kind that’s currently lighting up Steve’s entire body, making him feel every cell acutely even as everything is almost vibrating past the boundaries, melding into a single all-consuming need to be Bucky’s entire focus, the be-all-and-end-all of his existence in this moment, if only so Steve can lose himself in the reality of Bucky being his.

And Bucky, who knows him even when Steve is sure he’s unknowable, even when Steve wishes there were places he could hide: Bucky watches him, sees it all and just patiently eyes him, not with permission or concession but with the silent confirmation that neither applies here, between them. Bucky knows what Steve wants, can tell from where his eyes linger, from the set of his shoulders. Steve shivers for it, before he crawls down and shapes his lips around Bucky’s balls, tonguing with real goddamn vigor. 

The logistics of this had been dicey at best—Bucky tells him nearly every time that _Steve_ is better suited to even trying it on than Bucky is himself; Steve calls bullshit—but Steve is not, has never been, and will never be a quitter.

 _Just because you saw it in a porn scene doesn’t mean it’s feasible in real life,_ Bucky told him, the first time he mentioned it with Bucky’s stupidly-distracting pecs fisted against his palms. Steve had scoffed and opened his mouth to protest, but Bucky had anticipated it quick.

 _Feasible for you, idiot. For us. I mean, they’re impressive,_ Bucky admitted with a quirk of a brow, a shrug of a shoulder, and a twitch of the muscle beneath Steve’s hands that made Steve’s cock leak and drew a moan so sharp it _hurt_ from his throat; _but there are some physiological limitations to consider._

Those, Bucky knew—as soon as they were out of his mouth, in fact, given the look on his face—were precisely the _wrong_ words to say if he wanted Steve to give up on the idea. 

There’s a rhythm to it now, when Steve wants it; Bucky’s studied it enough to return the favor when he wants his dick between Steve’s pecs, but somehow he still watches Steve like it’s fascinating, like every move is a surprise. This part: Steve knows he could just do it, Bucky’s argued more than once, jack himself off on Bucky’s chest but that wasn’t the point. Steve gets keyed up about it, wants this so desperately, and grows to want it almost always for the picture of Bucky having shot off that far, pearly and gorgeous against that skin; and Steve’s going to slide in, going to push Bucky’s chest to a cleft in between so he can fuck against it—Steve’s going to slide against _Bucky’s_ come on his cock, warm and wet, filthy and clinging to Steve’s shaft so that when Steve comes and jerks himself through the last of it, he can lift his fingers and taste them both. 

So he puts real concentration into both drawing Bucky’s orgasm out and nudging Bucky’s cock impossibly higher so that when he comes, it’s hard and high and all over his sternum, pooling for Steve to catch between the ridge he’ll make with his steady hands just shy of the blushed, pebbled flesh around Bucky’s gorgeous nipples, pressing in and holding as Bucky’s breath comes quicker, as Steve shakes with the want, with the warring ways in which he always wants to thrust harder, faster but then wants to savour it, wants to draw it out and let it sink into his bones.

The heat of just those _thoughts_ is enough to fuel the attentions of Steve’s mouth until Bucky’s tensing, shaking; tensing, coming—

“Jesus,” Bucky gasps as Steve grabs his jerking cock and presses it up near-flush with his stomach, letting it spurt up where Steve wants it, and Steve doesn’t give Bucky the chance to wind down, to catch breath: Steve wants to feel the waves of his gasping under his thighs, against his dick. 

God, but he _wants_ like he can’t hardly stand.

Steve’s hands fly to Bucky’s chest, shoving nearly from his Bucky’s sides to create some gorgeous fucking cleavage, leans in to nose the spunk into the crease before he jumps on top of Bucky’s abs, grinds against the muscles there just because he can, and sets his pace.

There’s something triumphant in it, the doggedness of making it work and making it _good_ besides; the fact that he’s a lucky sonuvabitch for more reasons than he could count across ten serum-extended lifetimes, not least for the way he gets to have this, to have Bucky to test and play and fantasize with, to push and pull and try and laugh and experiment, to build their pleasure together, never stale or stagnant or hindered by rules: never boring. Always a wildfire, a lightning storm in Steve’s chest, through Steve’s veins. 

Goddamn, but he’s _lucky_ in ways he never dreamt a man could be. 

For instance: he’s lucky that Bucky’s indulged this particular whim of his long enough now that they’ve mostly perfected it, made it hot and sticky and just shy of obscene, how quick and hard they both can come for it, more than just thrilling for how it plays out, handsy and frantic and burning in his thighs for strain as much as for arousal. Steve rocks at Bucky’s chest for a few strokes before he starts the full thrust, the snap of his hips backward, the dip of his groin to roll against Bucky’s cock before he strains his dick forward between Bucky’s pecs, hands never faltering from where he holds them tight to push between, depending largely on his legs to hold the tempo.

“God, those muscles, Stevie,” Bucky says between gasps, reaching to grab at Steve’s thighs, then to squeeze Steve’s chest in kind, but Steve just rolls his eyes, panting as he grinds against Bucky’s length.

“Says you,” Steve huffs leaning to lick the crevice between Bucky’s nipples before resuming his slide there: the come’s already starting to dry now, his time running low and Steve turns a bit frantic, makes the pressure of his thrusts heavier, deeper as he stares at Bucky’s rock-hard nipples, as he circles his hips against Buck’s rock-hard dick. 

“My eyes are up here,” Bucky’s own eyes are dancing as he struggles to catch his breath and form the words, and Steve’s gaze jumps up—he kisses Bucky hard and fast because of course he does. Of course he always will.

“Smart ass.” 

And Bucky laughs, or what passes for it when he’s breathless, and Steve’s close enough still that he can steal another kiss before he moves down again.

“Come on, Stevie,” Bucky’s hands go back to Steve’s ass, massaging each globe mercilessly and Steve’s cadence falters, and he surges up against his will, his back arching and his head tossing back with a moan. “Work for it.”

And Steve growls, bites Bucky’s nipple to the right on his way up, on the left as he heads down, and Bucky’s throat is bared and Steve feels it all start to coalesce, or come apart, both at once: it’s not wholly the sensation itself that sends him to the edge when he’s thrusting along Bucky’s chest like this, though that certainly doesn’t hurt—it’s the challenge, the achievement, and the way Bucky looks almost proud every time; the feeling of Bucky’s body against him in a new way, exciting and shiny and devastating: Steve loves it, and it’s in no small part _that_ sensation, too, that drives him over and sends him shaking, coming all over Bucky’s chest, a mess.

Steve doesn’t let himself fall apart yet, though, doesn’t let himself collapse entirely, because he needs to get the taste off Bucky’s skin, them both spread on his flesh; he needs to push against Bucky’s cock until he’s coming, too.

Then, and only then, does Steve let his eyes slip closed, the flavor in his mouth like a drug, as he falls onto Bucky’s chest, boneless and lighter than fucking air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s worth noting that this particular manoeuvre was the result of a long conversation on whether certain sexual positions/acts were beyond the ability to recreate “sufficiently” across different sexual orientations. It was actually a deeply involved discussion and I love that such things come up when I’m on the clock at work.


	7. New Every Time; (1, 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve knows that when they do this, when they push it to its finish, that it breaks Bucky in a particular way, takes him apart from the core of him and, yes: Steve is the most careful, the most dedicated, the most painstaking guardian of those pieces as much as the red-raw body that holds them, left vulnerable in the process; he is meticulous and damn near worshipful of the honor of helping to put them all back into place.
> 
> But it is breaking. And while Bucky melts and feels and sings for it, it is never without pain.

Steve doesn’t know how long he spends with his tongue on Bucky’s skin, cleaning off every trace of their shared release until all Steve can taste is just Bucky, Bucky, _Bucky_.

“I think you got it all,” Bucky hums after Steve’s spent the last god-knows-how-many minutes alternating running long stripes with the flat of his tongue up Bucky’s sternum, leave kitten-licks between, and swirling wet around Bucky’s nipples, just enough that Bucky’s breathing a little heavy.

“Not trying to taste that,” Steve says blandly between laving the lines of Bucky’s muscles.

“I cannot _possibly_ taste that good,” Bucky scoffs, but he’s so fucking wrong it’d be laughable, and Steve would laugh at it—and laugh really fucking hard, too—if he didn’t have more skin to savour again, and again, and again.

Bucky moans as Steve adds a drag of teeth to his ministrations, and Steve thinks maybe he gets the memo clearly enough without saying: Bucky is mouthwatering, and Steve is insatiable.

So Steve doesn’t plan to make his way up Bucky’s chest the way he does; it just happens, as he chases that hunger, craves that decadence. He doesn’t mean to start tonguing around the dips of Bucky’s bones, drawing shivers: Bucky’s sensitive around the clavicles, and Steve’s body seems intent beyond thought to indulge in it, to tend to Bucky softly, deftly, and make him arc against Steve’s body, the press of him immaculate.

Steve doesn’t mean to start drawing patterns on the right clavicle, stretching out to the shoulder, idle until it isn’t. Until Steve starts back toward the middle and Bucky stills: a vibrating thread beneath Steve’s frame and they both know what’s coming, now. They both can feel it.

“Steve,” Bucky breathes, but only just, eyes wide when Steve meets them. Steve smiles softly, just a curve of the lips, and he leans in to press his forehead to Bucky’s, spends five full breaths balanced there, absorbing his heat and his want and his askance: familiar, and welcome in Steve’s body for the sole purpose of calming it and sending it back safe.

“Shh,” Steve hushes, not a command but instead something that soothes and it does its job: the subtle tension in Bucky’s muscles that always comes, that’s never quite faded? It dissolves for just the sound, and that’s the part that counts: it’ll never go away, they both know that, but it can be banished in a breath and that’s all Steve could want—to know how to root Bucky inside this moment, in _them_ , and to make him feel more than good, more than right, more than dizzied and weightless.

Steve only ever tries to make Bucky feel as singularly, blissfully a part of this world as he possibly can: where he belongs, where Steve holds a home for him against his body, inside his chest. 

“Let me.” And again: not a command—Steve exhales the words because they make Bucky shiver where he breathes against Bucky’s neck.

“Until…” Bucky gasps out as Steve tongues the corded muscle that runs along his throat, and Steve’s not taken aback exactly, but he’s not expecting the unfinished question. Steve knows that when they do this, when they push it to its finish, that it breaks Bucky in a particular way, takes him apart from the core of him and, yes: Steve is the most careful, the most dedicated, the most painstaking guardian of those pieces as much as the red-raw body that holds them, left vulnerable in the process; he is meticulous and damn near worshipful of the honor of helping to put them all back into place.

But it is breaking. And while Bucky melts and feels and sings for it, it is never without pain.

“You want me to?” Steve asks, needing to be entirely sure.

“Yes.” Bucky’s answer is immediate; his eyes are closed, but his tone is certain. “ _Please_.”

And so Steve latches lips at the hollow between Bucky’s collarbones, counts the pulse there until it’s firm against his mouth, hard and quick and then he moves, sucks bruises against the line of Bucky’s clavicle to the left, slow and thorough, dragging his lips sloppy at first only to go back and lick clean where he needs to, leaving soft wetness in his wake as Bucky makes soft, whining noises in the back of his throat, fighting a losing battle to keep quiet. 

As soon as Steve feels the raised tissue under his tongue, he slows: he breathes deep and lets his whole body sink into what he’s about to do. He loves this, because he knows Bucky understands what Steve can’t say, what he can’t put into words but that he can shape into _this_ , into his mouth tracing every line of Bucky’s scars deliberately, and Steve could do it in his sleep, knows the map of them like he knows Bucky’s heartbeat, Bucky’s handprint, the weight of Bucky’s hard length on his tongue; he could do it in his sleep, but he’d never, because he gives himself to the task of it, pours his soul into the way he exhales warm just where he knows Bucky has the most sensation. It’s better, now, with the new model: the vibranium is nearly as sensitive as his right arm in most ways, but the scarring at the seam of flesh to metal still looks angry, sometimes, riotous like it wants to lash out and Steve’s sole purpose is to show that skin that it belongs, now, that it’s cherished as much as any piece of the man it covers, and that all the suffering, the unfathomable pain it speaks to it is held, now. Is shared as best it can be, is clenched tight in two chests so that the burden is livable, so that it can be known and seen but maybe, possibly loved into quietude more than it screams.

“Steve,” Bucky’s voice trembles on his name as Steve mouths, intent, around the folded, faded lines where the dark sleek shine of Bucky’s arm meets up against flesh, sighing for the taste of him, as exquisite here as it is anywhere else, any other part of him. Bucky shudders, his breath short and sharp and strangled on a keen and Steve noses the line there once more before he presses a palm to the scars near Bucky’s shoulder, thumb already starting to spell out their shapes as Steve’s mouth travels to the junctures, the joins, the spaces where the plates of Bucky’s left arm overlap and shift as Bucky shakes, as Bucky whines for the sensations Steve draws, clenching fists in the sheets and canting his hips into nothing but air until Steve moves just so, straddling him properly again so that their cocks meet, both fully hard: Bucky for the sake of Steve’s mouth, and Steve for the sounds Bucky’s making, and the feeling of him, every part of him, under his tongue.

“You’re beautiful,” Steve can’t help but say, his tongue loose as it glides over the articulated grooves, the smooth expanses of vibranium. “You’re so beautiful. Goddamn breathtaking, Buck, I can’t,” and Steve groans, grinding his hips against Bucky as he kisses the metal hard, like he can press his praise, his devotion into it as much as he sometimes tries to speak his deepest self into Bucky’s skin, and Bucky’s voice breaks around a tremulous sound and Steve thinks: maybe.

_Maybe_.

And Steve starts rocking against Bucky’s dick in the same rhythm that he tongues the breaks of the wrist joint on Bucky’s arm and it won’t take long, it won’t take long at all—

Steve comes first. Bucky shatters in pieces, parts, little bits at a time.

But Steve catches him, catches every shard and makes his way back up Bucky’s arm, across the scar tissue, and kiss the notch between his collarbones again until the pulse calms down, until Bucky’s hands start gentling across Steve’s spine.

The left hand holds Steve closest, though—unfailing—and Steve smiles into Bucky’s chest for it like it’s new, every time.


	8. Going Up or Coming Down (1.25, 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hell if Steve would ever say it out loud, but the fact of it is: if he comes enough times in a row? He gets, maybe, a little clingy. Possibly he gets sappy, according to some people: one person, really—specifically the only other party sharing responsibility for the state of his fucked-out-ness. So sue him, it’s entirely plausible that when Steve’s dick’s been wrung out enough times, he starts to get _emotional_. 
> 
> You know. According to _some_ people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Circumstances beyond my control kept me from updating this as planned, but I intend to catch up over the coming days with multiple chapters a day as I'm able.

Hell if Steve would ever say it out loud, but the fact of it is: if he comes enough times in a row? He gets, maybe, a little clingy. Possibly he gets sappy, according to some people: one person, really—specifically the only other party sharing responsibility for the state of his fucked-out-ness. So sue him, it’s entirely plausible that when Steve’s dick’s been wrung out enough times, he starts to get _emotional_. 

You know. According to _some_ people.

Bottom line, though: when he feels his muscles start their first steps toward that lasting sort of ache for being used in the very best of ways, he’s only ever going to have got there next to one person. And if he starts to feel vulnerable for it, for that feeling? It’s been a lesson long and hard-learned to his bones that it’s safe, he’s safe, he’s so _safe_ and Steve doesn’t know if he’d ever felt that way before outside Bucky, but giving himself over to it like this is a goddamn gift, every single time. 

He’s come more than enough times in the past four hours for that to be the case. 

So, in due form, Steve’s stretched around Bucky’s body, arms cast wide to better wrap around those incredible shoulders, knees bent at just the right angle to hook ankles under those impossible thighs, and Steve lets himself sink into it, lets the contact of skin on skin, of Bucky’s chest rising into his: Steve lets it wash over him, envelope him, and he sighs just a little, nosing the space at the crook of Bucky’s neck where the exhalation leaves heat and wetness because it’s his, and it’s on Bucky’s body, and Steve will never take for granted what that means, but neither will he ever stop being that little bit turned on by every goddamn part of him on, in, with, any part of Bucky.

“Mmm,” Bucky stretches, though not much: Steve’s hold isn’t tight, exactly, but it’s complete. “You tired?”

“No,” Steve shakes his head at the base of Bucky’s throat, pressed there to brush his lips against the skin with every turn.

“Hungry?”

Steve hums against the feeling of Bucky’s breath, the way he swallows, the little motions and sounds that spark unmitigated warmth through Steve’s body. 

“Soon,” Steve tips his head upward to speak against the hard line of Bucky’s jaw, letting his mouth relish the bristle of Bucky’s beard.

“Want to,” Steve mouths the words against those prickly hairs, and doesn’t plan to move his hips just a little bit to feel the contrast of the curls at Bucky’s groin, but that’s exactly what he does; they’re not soft, they’ve been at this too long for that, but Steve only half stifles a whine for the sensation of it.

And that’s all Steve manages: two words, a wanting, and a whine. But Bucky knows him. Bucky knows all of him and knows how he comes apart in every possible way, knows how he unravels for every possible thing, every possible moment they could have between them, and so Steve doesn’t need to give him any more for Bucky to know what Steve wants; what Steve needs.

“It’s all yours, sweetheart,” Bucky murmurs, his breath catching Steve’s hair where Steve’s still rubbing his lips, his cheeks over Bucky’s beard: “all yours.”

Steve moans and takes Bucky’s lips, because what the fuck else can he possibly do in response to that, what in the world would match that meaning and give it back wholly; Steve starts out hard and demanding and ends up fucking Bucky’s mouth with his tongue like the world’s ending and Bucky returns the sentiment in kind, and the stretch of Steve’s cheeks is that delicious kind of sore that’s as tantilizing, tempting as it is satisfying, by the time they have to break for air.

“You going up,” Bucky asks, quirking a brow even as he’s panting to get his breath back; “or down?”

Steve doesn’t answer, just locks on Bucky’s gaze and holds it for a long moment, marveling at him a little, before he slides his limbs out from around Bucky and levers himself up enough to press up against Bucky, lined against him chest to chest before he flips them, and pushes Bucky down impatiently.

He gets a huff of laughter for it, and he relishes the sweetness of it before Bucky sits up, turns, then straddles Steve at the waist and walks his way back on his knees until he’s hovering at Steve’s chin, cock just starting to swell, and Steve reaches for Bucky’s sides and pulls him further up, almost stifling above Steve’s face and Steve grabs Bucky's dick in his mouth and sucks just the slightest bit, until he can feel it, until he can feel it harden just a touch on his tongue before he lets it slip free. Then his hands are on Bucky’s hips, pulling him back down and Bucky gives, keeps sliding until his ass his in Steve’s face and Steve’s moaning for it before he even gets his mouth on Bucky at all.

But as soon as he does just that, Bucky hisses—“ _Jesus_ ”—like he doesn’t know what’s coming, like it’s still a goddamn surprise, and Steve can’t help but smile against his hole for a second before he starts running his tongue across and around and against it, every direction and angle he can lick and swirl and taste because _god_ , he lied to Bucky. 

He’s hungry as _fuck_.

He takes his time, even though he’s gagging for Bucky’s taste, to thrust his tongue into the delicious pucker he’s tracing wet and wanting: but he lets himself enjoy it, lets himself swallow that taste every few moments for _so many moments_ —hours maybe, days—closing his eyes and loving every nuance of the flavor that maybe lives in Steve’s head because he’s so goddamn in love, and more pertinent to the now, so goddamn in love with Bucky’s _ass_ he’s sure it’s enough to make Bucky taste exactly like Steve thinks something _that_ amazing must, sparking electric on every bud of his tongue.

But, that said: it’s just as possible that Bucky’s flavor is _exactly_ as Steve tastes it, because that _ass_.

Good _god_.

“So good, Buck,” Steve leans up, nose lined against the crack, wet with his spit. “So fucking good, I…” 

He doesn’t know how to finish that sentence, save to push his tongue into Bucky and lick, press until he can feel those walls, those muscles clench and flutter as he bobs his head just enough to stretch, to press fully up against Bucky so he can reach as far as possible into his hole, and fuck but he still wants _more_ , wishes he could reach further, and his hands move without even thinking, instrinsic, to dance just behind Bucky’s balls Where Bucky’s canted just so above him, and he presses, because his fingers know exactly where to go to get where they want, where it’ll make Bucky tense and then release, and then _give_ and Steve’ll get the dirtiest sounds, the prettiest little twitches of Bucky’s ass around Steve’s tongue.

“There,” Bucky groans, head tossed back, as if Steve didn’t know exactly where he was going, what he was doing to ; “ _god_.”

Steve licks enthusiastically in and out of Bucky’s hole to the same rhythm he’s massaging his prostate, milking that sweet spot through the skin and relishing every little thing it’s shooting through Bucky’s body with the filthy, wonderous intimacy of Steve’s face, Steve’s mouth, Steve’s tongue buried deep in him, soaking it all up as he works him gently, but persistent with it, dedicated to the task with everything he is, with every goddamn inch of him because every, goddamn, _inch_ wants—is vibrating with it and shivering around it and eating his fucking fill.

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky gasps, and Steve knows he’s getting close, the hitch in his breath and the break in his voice clear and plain.

“You’re gorgeous,” Steve says, taking a moment to draw back and spread Bucky wide so that he quivers with it, exposed and wet and cool by comparison for it: “goddamn, just, just,” Steve buries his face between those perfect globes of flesh, the firm muscle of those cheeks flushed with color where Steve’s stubble’s rubbed it red: “ _gorgeous_.”

“I’m close, Stevie,” Bucky breathes out, and Steve can feel it in the way his thighs are starting to tremble where they’re lined along Steve’s body, so he stretches his jaw and fits his lips at Bucky’s hole and sucks at the rim, loose and used as it is, and then Bucky’s coming, and Steve pulls back, grabs with the hands of the needy and the strength of the desperate to get that spilling cock closer, just enough that it drips onto his face, hot and sticky and delectable and every flavor of Bucky on Steve’s tongue is a goddamn delight, and he lets himself relish it long and sweet before Bucky turns, leans down and kisses Steve’s worn mouth, swift and sure but gentle, and Steve’s bruised lips match Bucky’s, their shape and the way Bucky moves only as fast as Steve can still manage to meet and Steve floats with it: _god_.

Steve feels a catch in his chest, his heart in his throat. He reaches up and frames Bucky’s face with both hands and when the kiss breaks he just breathes and breathes, and he inhales Bucky like he’d drown without it, without _him_ , and if that’s not the truth, the god’s honest truth of the whole fucking world, then Steve doesn’t know a goddamn thing at all.


	9. The Care and Keeping of the Dipshit Known as Steven G. Rogers (2, 0)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If someone ever wrote a manual—The Care and Keeping of the Dipshit Known as Steven G. Rogers—first, the only someone who could do it would be Bucky. 
> 
> And it’d be a goddamn masterpiece, too.

If someone ever wrote a manual—The Care and Keeping of the Dipshit Known as Steven G. Rogers—first, the only someone who could do it would be Bucky. And it’d be a goddamn masterpiece, too: detailed instructions about how to deal with Steve when he’s drunk—maybe it’s only Asgardian brews that can manage it now, but it’s worth a mention for the sake of such memorable night as when Steve had decided that you could feel moonlight just the same as sunlight but softer, gentler and so it'd be safe for him to bask without burning to a crisp and had stripped bare on the fire escape to catch the rays, and Bucky'd had to drag his sleeping, naked ass, scrawny and blindingly pale, into the apartment to the angry shouts of the neighbors he woke up with the uncoordinated finagling of Steve’s dead weight into their room. He’d write about how Steve hates the taste of beets and pawned them off on Bucky whenever he could because Bucky hated them a little less, and then made fun of Bucky for the stain of them on his mouth: _like a damn clown, you mook_ , because Steve was and is an asshole and people forget that part; get thrown for a loop when it peeks out. And about how Steve gets particularly pissy when you try to clean up his busted lip: everything else he just bitches about like normal, but the lips, he’s a particular sonuvabitch about—hisses like a goddamn cat and jerks away and fuck what people apparently regard as “Captain America’s Disappointed Face”, naw: this is Steve Rogers, who is far more righteous and bullheaded, and when you try to clean up his busted lips, because his first-string option of opening his punk mouth to make excuses and chew someone out is by definition occupied—as a fallback, _Steve Rogers_ downright _glowers_. 

Stuff like that. 

He’d write such a book because Steve deserves to be cared for and cherished and made to feel like all that he is, is safe and warm and held close and felt full. Bucky would spill so many of the secrets in his heart to make sure that was true. 

But suppose there was a chapter, a section on the care and keeping of Steve’s superhuman sex drive—Bucky knows he’d struggle with that one; he’d struggle because Steve wasn’t one for casual encounters, had to get his heart involved to make it worth his while, the sap. And Bucky doesn't like to think about anyone else being that close to Steve, knowing how to make him feel like Bucky does, make him beg like Bucky does, make him scream and fall the pieces. 

Because Bucky knows, is likely the only person in the world who does, and those secrets—

 _Those_ secrets, Bucky’s keeping close to the chest. 

But for argument's sake: _if_ there were a manual on caring and keeping Steve Rogers, and Bucky wrote a chapter on their sex life? 

One of the first things to know is how Steve gets when he’s thoroughly fucked to shattering. 

Which he damn well is and then some at the moment, given he’d just topped off the whole show by eating Bucky out for over a fucking hour, so.

Part of it is the serum. Over time, it had become less of a novelty, less a matter of curiosity than necessity, knowing how the cocktails they’d both been dosed with differed. For the most part, they were equally matched, or close enough—but then they’d both ended up crushed and impaled by the same goddamned plank inside a building as it collapsed, their injuries perfectly matched, and Bucky was awake a whole 48 hours before Steve (and Bucky doesn’t like thinking of those hours; frankly, as he’s been told more than once, no one does, because what _he_ remembers as heartstopping, unmitigated, untamed fear, everyone _else_ seems to remember as the doctors clearly saying that Steve’s recovery looked to be making progress exactly as expected, with Bucky being unbearable as he worried and fretted around the clock and verbally eviscerated anyone who crossed him. Bucky does not remember it this way and very much suspects to this day that everyone is lying.)

So they’d done their best to map out the discrepancies between Steve’s version and Bucky’s, and the basics boiled down to matters of degree: Steve’s faster, if only just, and stronger, if only by a hair. But Bucky? Bucky’s got him beat on simple endurance, and he heals quicker: the Winter Soldier needed to be low maintenance, but high efficiency, and so that’s what they’d made of him. And it was critical in the field, to know and anticipate. 

In the bedroom, though, it was just as handy. 

Because Steve goes hard and fast out the gate, and Bucky meets him with no less enthusiasm, but not nearly the same torrent of unbridled energy; but when Steve exhausts his reserves, and is _then_ the same idiot he’d always been who knew his limits but said fuck them anyway, he ends up a limp tangle of limbs, all dopey grin and heavy-beating heart, and he _needs_ , without the clarity of mind to speak it fully; he aches for things without the coordination left to reach.

Which is where Bucky—with far more endurance and far more command of his body and wits after Steve’s raucous headfirst dive into the fray—took the reins. 

So first, in caring and keeping a thoroughly come-wrung Steve Rogers: feed him. Good god, definitely feed him, the glutton that he is. 

And don’t underestimate the size of his appetite, or the sweet tooth that only really shows itself after sex. 

Which is why Bucky’s standing stark naked in their kitchen, stirring batter with practiced ease because he’s a fucking expert in keeping and caring for Steve Rogers. He could do this in his sleep.

Second: a fucked-out Steve is loose; he’s vulnerable and he knows it, and the fact that he’s not scared of it anymore is a goddamn miracle, so you attend to what he needs in order to keep it that way. Mainly, you make sure his skin is always touching your skin: somehow, in some way, every moment. It’s important to him, it keeps him grounded, and most critically, it makes him feel safe.

Which is why it had taken at least twice the time to move enough chairs to support the prone length of Steve’s frame while Steve hung like a limpet from Bucky’s body, flush against him across the full expanse of Bucky’s back, before Bucky took Steve's hands and led him to lie down, head tipped back just at the protrusion of the cupboards so that Bucky could straddle his face where he stood, just as Steve liked best, so Steve could take Bucky’s cock between his lips and tongue idly at it, breathe sated around it, suck soft as it suited him and hum in satisfaction as he lazily floated on what it meant to come down from where he’d pushed himself and build back up with nothing rushing him, pure and natural, free from stress or demands.

Bucky only lifts out of the warmth of Steve’s mouth to put the cake into the oven and set the timer, hooking Steve’s fingers with his in the meantime before Steve has a chance to keen just a little brokenly at any loss of contact; he reaches, the stretch in his muscles for holding to Steve and still managing to grab the right pan for the chocolate a genuine strain but worth it, and once the bars start to heat and he can dig his fingers into the first hints of melting, he slides his fingers from Steve’s grip across Steve’s shoulder, up his neck, and swirls the tips between Steve’s lips to give him a taste.

Steve moans deep, and it sparks in Bucky’s cock; Steve feels the jump of interest against his cheek where Bucky’s pressed and he lets go of Bucky’s fingers and resumes his gentle, comfortable tending to Bucky’s length against the heat of his tongue, swallowing slow enough to coax a shiver down Bucky’s spine more than once.

“Swear to god and all the saints, Stevie,” Bucky’s mouth falls open on a silent moan, his voice rough, though he keeps stirring the chocolate diligently; “you’re the prettiest goddamn cockwarmer.”

Steve smiles around him, and Bucky lets his eyes close for a second just to savor the sensation; it never gets old, giving Steve this—half the pleasure is in the way Steve works him almost as a function of his being, an extension of himself without aim or intent, just for the fact that they’re here, that they are, and that they breathe the same air and beat the same blood. But the other half of the pleasure is the way there’s no tension in Steve, like this. The way that he’s malleable and relaxed in a way that’s not a choice, but simply a natural state. The world ceases to exist for him when he’s like this, when _they’re_ like this, and Bucky gets to help give him that, gets to help make that possible and make sure it lasts as long as it can, and that when it inevitably fades Steve feels good, so _good_ for coming back that he doesn’t miss it, or else, knows not to bother missing it because between them, it’ll never be too far off, there’ll never be too long to wait for it to come back again.

Steve pulls off Bucky’s cock a bit unexpectedly, lips parted as he drags them up and down the wet shaft and noses the only-just hardening length; Bucky’s eyes snap open and he meets Steve’s: wide blue gazing up at him with his soul shining bright in them, warm and inviting and marveling as he tongues to the tip of Bucky’s dick with a sigh, his whole body dissolving before he leans a stubble-rough cheek against Bucky’s inner thigh, never once breaking eye contact as he murmurs, kissing the soft-tender skin:

“I love you, Buck,” and it’s said in a voice that words can’t describe, a tone that can’t be qualified except by how it feels in Bucky’s chest: like the world could crumble and life could cease and those words and what they hold would be the only things left standing—unassailable, undeniable.

Infinite.

Bucky grins at him, and marvels a little bit in return: when their relationship became public, it was met with the expected spectrum of reactions, but as it settled into relative normalcy—for a given definition of normal, of course—they were often asked if either of them was particularly romantic, especially effusive. Their work was dangerous, demanding, and neither of them were interested in hamming it up for the cameras these days (much as Steve liked to poke fun at the fact that once upon a time, in another life almost, Bucky’d have given his left ear for the chance to preen for an attentive public—Bucky won’t admit it, but he likes when Steve ribs him about it, likes that they can laugh about these things and take them into the whole of who they are): but the point is, they’re neither of them much for publicly displaying their affection. People don’t question their commitment, but they apparently have the idea in their heads that they’re repressed, maybe, or too stoic, or “of their time” to feel fully even behind closed doors. Like their relationships was a business contract: bloodless and nice on paper.

But if they could know even a fraction, a tenth-a-breath of this: if they could know the way Bucky’s entire body feels staring down at Steve just now, those words beating through his veins, and the way Steve’s looks at him: unmade and stripped bare and perfectly at home under Bucky’s gaze in turn.

If the world could know even the barest shred of _this_ , they would know that what he and Steve have is...singular. Indescribable.

Closest thing to the meaning of life itself that Bucky’s ever known, or thought to fathom.

“Love you, Steve,” Bucky whispers, leaning to grab Steve’s hand and lift it to his lips: “with all my heart.”

Steve tugs Bucky’s hand down in turn and kisses each of his knuckles before he goes back to mouthing Bucky’s cock, licking down to his sac now and again in something less playful and more meandering. Bucky slips his fingers between Steve’s lips with a little chocolate every so often before he turns off the burner, and then holds Steve’s hand more firmly to ease him upward, steady him on his feet, and pull him behind Bucky’s body while Bucky grabs the pound cake from the oven, golden and perfectly baked.

“Mmm,” Steve draws the sound out between a moan and a hum and a purr, and it sings through Bucky’s bones; he drapes himself across Bucky’s back again as Bucky gathers fruit while the cake cools, cleans and slices, and then upends the pan and cubes the cake with the quickness borne of muscle memory.

“Back to bed?” Bucky presses softly into Steve’s hold on him; he knows the answer, because he can read Steve’s body and Steve’s breathing almost better than Steve’s words, never mind that Bucky also knows that words won’t come anyway.

And they don’t; Steve just falls more fully against Bucky’s body and Bucky turns impulsively, captures Steve’s lips and holds him tight against his chest to bear the weight of him, licks Steve’s taste and his own from Steve’s teeth, the hint of chocolate lingering under his tongue. He breaks away only once he’s satisfied that he’d taste the same to Steve in kind.

Bucky turns, and it’s only for the supernatural balance gifted by the serum in his veins, and the conditioning still in his muscles that came with the same; that and the fact that he’s done this countless times before, that Bucky can balance everything in his hands while Steve’s grasp tightens around his waist and he shuffles along behind Bucky, loath to put unnecessary distance between them and hell.

Hell, but Bucky loves this man, every day and all the time and never ceasing, but like this: he loves Steve like this.

And he sure as hell loves what comes next for it.


	10. Fondue (1.75, 5)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve really didn’t know what he was getting himself into when he let slip that fucking hilarious story about _fondue_ , but given the force of his sucking against Bucky’s fingertips? 
> 
> Bucky doesn’t think Steve minds.

Bucky licks a long, slick stripe up Steve’s chest, drawing a full-body shudder for it, and Bucky smirks into the dip between Steve’s collarbones. 

“There,” Bucky murmurs, chin propped on Steve’s chest just close enough to feel the heaviness of Steve’s swallows, his breaths. 

“All cleaned up.”

Though that won’t last long—hasn’t yet, this time or any time before—and they both know it.

Steve whines just the slightest bit, and Bucky leans away, watching the candles beneath the warming plate holding the pot of chocolate, keeping it soft and smooth. He looks at the remaining spread of bite-sized snacks, picks the last berry left and swirls it in the chocolate before he reaches back and teases Steve’s lip with the sweet tip, and god, if Steve doesn’t mouth at it just like like he does at the head of Bucky’s cock sometimes—and Bucky relishes the opportunity to watch it like this, undistracted by his own mounting pleasure. 

“Filthy fucking mouth of yours,” Bucky presses the red fruit further in, and doesn’t pretend at subtlety as he steadies himself with a hand low on Steve’s stomach, enough that the heel of his palm’s just shy of the base of Steve’s dick and he leans just enough pressure that Steve’s length twitches in interest, and Bucky slides the strawberry past Steve’s lips and lets him take it in full, let’s him swallow and savor and lick his lips before Bucky drags a thumb over that sinful lower lip, pulls it down and then dives in to suck it alone between his teeth and bite just the sightest bit until Steve makes the most gorgeous whimper in the back of his throat, and Bucky’s quick to reward him with the swipe of his chocolate-dipped fingers against Steve’s greedy tongue. 

Steve really didn’t know what he was getting himself into when he let slip that fucking hilarious story about _fondue_ , but given the force of his sucking against Bucky’s fingertips, the way he’s working them one by one until he gets every last drop, until he’s traced the ridges of the metal and plundered all he can—given that unbridled enthusiasm? Bucky doesn’t think Steve minds. 

Because of _course_ Bucky wasn’t going to let Steve be _humiliated_ by his misunderstanding, no matter how many years had passed. So it was _absolutely_ a matter of defending Steve’s _dignity_ , making sure they found a sex act befitting of the word. 

Or: Bucky’s a little shit. Either way, probably. 

But regardless, Bucky absolutely _loves_ it when they fondue. 

Steve’s still tonguing diligently over the vibranium hooked in his mouth and Bucky’d let him do it all day, save that Steve really does need the calories to recover his energy if they’re going keep at this marathon of theirs, and Steve might be just this side of tapped out for the time being, but that’s why there’s two of them. Bucky’s got this stretch. 

He grabs a slice of pound cake and pops it in his mouth plain, indulging in the taste, but knowing he’s got something sweeter on his fingertips. 

Literally, he thinks, as he slides the palm ar Steve’s stomach lower and starts to dance his fingers down Steve’s shaft. 

Steve gasps for it, and Bucky takes the opportunity of his open lips to slip a chocolate-covered cube of pound cake in, dropping it on Steve’s tongue, delicate like a sugar cube.

“Quiet Stevie,” Bucky chides warmly, mischief in the words; “eat your lunch.”

And Bucky grabs Steve’s dick fully now and works it with a leisurely expertise, Steve’s body and pleasure as close to him as his own skin and bones; he twists and gentles and pulls as he coats his free hand entirely in melted chocolate and smears it over Steve’s chest impulsively, wantonly, just because the heat makes Steve tremble. Just because he can.

“Look at that,” Bucky murmurs as he pulls back enough to see Steve hardened in earnest under his touch, and it’s with a dangerous curl of his lips that he switches hands, lets lukewarm chocolate slide along Steve’s length as Bucky reaches up and slips fingertips through the molten handprints he’d left on Steve’s chest before he uses his candy-coated grasp to tweak Steve’s nipples in time with his rhythm on Steve’s dick. 

“Your sweet fucking cock, Stevie,” he lifts up and bites another block of cake between his teeth, drags it sloppily along Steve’s sternum to catch a bit of the chocolate before he feeds it into Steve’s mouth, lets Steve’s little moan for it set him alight before he changes directions entirely, replacing his hand with his mouth on Steve’s dick and swallowing him whole; Steve groans deep from the core of him, something shivering and primal, raw and shaking in the muscles Bucky’s clutching at in Steve’s thighs. Bucky lets himself tease out the sweetness of the chocolate he’d left as residue against the rough veins of Steve’s cock, thick and rich and sumptuous; the decadent flavor of Steve underneath, sweetest of all. 

He swallows, hums, hollows his cheeks and the bitter salt at Steve’s slit is heady on Bucky’s tongue as he pulls off and puts his hand back on Steve’s dick, ready to coax him through the finish and Steve’s breathing heavy, chest heaving and Bucky’s a glutton: he tests the temperature with a deft fingertip before he grabs the pot of chocolate and tips it over Steve’s chest, swirls it down in a nonsense pattern of delicate strings, lacework drizzles, and Steve hisses for even the slightest warmth of it, he writhes and arches up when Bucky pours little pools at his taut nipples, and when Steve comes, it’s hard and mindless and lost in a high-pitched mewl—it’s milky white and mouthwatering in ropes across his chest that twine around the just-drying chocolate stripes and Bucky watches for a long moment before he dives, eats the sweet and savory in tandem and Christ, but it’s unbearable, it’s unbeatable: he’s weak for it, every time. 

He grabs for what’s left of the cake, trails it in the wet perfection on Steve’s skin and lifts it to Steve’s mouth. 

Steve opens immediately, filthy motherfucker, and good god, Bucky _loves_ him. 

Steve’s got his eyes closed as he eats his fill, but his intuition is damn near preternatural—he smacks his lips in a wordless command once Bucky runs out of dippable treats: demanding. 

So Bucky meets the need, and gathers mouthfuls of come and sugar, milk and chocolate under his tongue to feed into Steve’s waiting lips, their tongues tangling in the process, in between each serving. 

Steve smiles against Bucky’s mouth with the last taste, running hot palms over Bucky’s shoulder blades and down his spine and Bucky mouths, sticky and soft down Steve’s neck before sliding hands between them. 

“Still a mess, despite my best efforts,” Bucky hums against Steve’s chest. “What am I gonna do with you?”

It’s not entirely true: they’ve licked almost everything off Steve’s skin. But Bucky thinks there’s maybe a little chocolate stuck to the curls nestled above Steve’s dick. And Bucky Barnes is nothing if not thorough when it comes to Steve. 

Particularly: when it comes to Steve’s dick. 

“Think I need something to wash all that down with, sweetheart,” he whispers at Steve’s navel and oh, yes: there’s chocolate matting those curls together, fucking tantalizing, but Steve’s cock is right there and Bucky?

Bucky opens his lips and sucks Steve in between, ready to drink desperately when it comes because _goddamn_. 

He’s _parched_


	11. Defiant As Fuck (1.5, 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “ _Quiet_ ,” Bucky drags his teeth slow, but hard against Steve’s spine as he settles back into a steady-if-godawfully-slow pace below the mouthwatering swell of Steve’s ass. “Goddamnit, you’re the one who likes it _so much better_ this way,” Bucky chides, flicking against the divot of Steve’s hip and earning a yelp.
> 
> “So shut it,” he growls, “before I flip your ass over and shove my dick in your mouth to shut you up,” and if Bucky takes two fingers and spreads Steve’s ass open just enough to touch a thumbprint firm against Steve’s hole?
> 
> Well. Serves him right.

“Oh, think a shower would have been a good idea _now_?”

To be fair, Bucky is damn surprised it’s taken this long for Steve to do anything more than moan into Bucky’s rhythm, sliding between his thighs—maybe moving with it, rocking against it with a delicious touch of pressure, just enough opposite friction to drive Bucky that much closer to the edge: Bucky has to have been at this for at least an hour, pushing as far as he can before he almost can’t stop it, almost can’t ease back down, _almost_ —but he’s going to come long and hard when he finally peaks and they’ve honed this particular play to an art form. Bucky knows how far to push it, how close to a whiteout behind his eyes he can stand before it’s beyond his control. 

But he’s been at this for at _least_ an hour, and Steve hadn’t done so much as squirm for the lingering tacky sugar and long-dried come on his chest that Bucky’s tongue—dedicated to its task as it was—couldn’t have _quite_ caught in full, but now Steve’s huffing, frustrated and trying to pretend it away even as he’s still too pliant to be subtle: he’s leaning his torso down while still, admirably, keeping his thighs steady against Bucky’s length, but he’s trying like hell to rub against the mattress, to rid himself of the way his skin catches on the sheets.

And Bucky had told him: they should shower.

Steve answers now, petulant and somehow still defiant as fuck, exactly as he’d answered before:

“No.”

And Steve shifts just a little, the motion nearly a tease too far on Bucky’s cock, fucking strained to its limit already for control: but Steve shifts a little and turns his head just a touch and Bucky watches Steve’s fingers slip between his own lips, watches him suck them sloppy and then slide them over his chest, collecting fragments, remnants before he takes those fingers back into his mouth and moans around it like the taste is still potent, still some forbidden indulgence in his tongue. 

“Stubborn sonuvabitch,” is what Bucky says, but he curls himself over Steve and leans in to kiss the closest spot he can reach, just the corner of Steve’s mouth but it’s enough; then Steve’s rolling his hips and pushing Bucky near-past breaking as Bucky fights trembling for just how taut, how stretched thin he is because _fuck_ , he’s squeezed his cock from tip to base to keep from coming—a goddamn human cockring holding fast by will and the endless determination to give Steve Rogers pleasure, the goddamn trascnedent sort that robs all the breath in those impossible lungs, that tests the limits of that unfathomable heart—Bucky holds, builds and eases off until it _hurts_ , god, but he does it, gathers the tension and the promise of the way he’ll pull back shaking and spill over Steve’s skin, the force of it waiting to slick the line of Steve’s crack, the perfect stretch of Steve’s back, pooling at the deep-cut bow that slides down to the swell of Steve’s ass; it’s fucking torture, but Bucky’s willing to take it for the waiting reward.

“Faster,” Steve grunts, and Bucky huffs a laugh because that’s definitely not happening; Bucky’ll pop off in half a hot fucking second if he does more than this careful rocking into Steve’s thighs, measured and keyed to the painstakingly-controlled rhymth of his breaths, so his body moves the least it possibly, tempts as little as possible against the precarious control Bucky has over his dick right now, the ache in him all-consuming as he tries not to grit his teeth, because as soon as he starts that, he’s too close to done for and he needs this to last just a little bit longer; he can feel it, the build of it heavy from his gut and tight both upward and downward with equal, clenching strength but not yet pressing his lungs closed, forcing his breath _too_ short; already shaking in his thighs but not yet knocking his knees.

“Quiet,” Bucky arches himself to press lips at the base of Steve’s neck, but he can’t keep up the soft thrusting while he does it, and Steve—the greedy little fuck that he is—has the audacity to _whine_ about it.

“Buck—“

“ _Quiet_ ,” Bucky drags his teeth slow, but hard against Steve’s spine as he settles back into a steady-if-godawfully-slow pace below the mouthwatering swell of Steve’s ass. “Goddamnit, you’re the one who likes it _so much better_ this way,” Bucky chides, flicking against the divot of Steve’s hip and earning a yelp.

“So shut it,” he growls, “before I flip your ass over and shove my dick in your mouth to shut you up,” and if Bucky takes two fingers and spreads Steve’s ass open just enough to touch a thumbprint firm against Steve’s hole?

Well. Serves him right.

Steve whines for the pressing, the contact, and Bucky grins, and okay, maybe it’s a little unfair for Bucky to taunt him this way, because it’s not a fucking hardship, though it’s easy to forget that as Bucky slowly loses his mind as the minutes start to feel impossibly long, but god.

_God_ , when he finally comes, it is going to be a fucking thing of beauty.

“ _Jesus_ ,” Steve groans, when Bucky starts rubbing patterns against Steve’s entrance, never pressing in but never having to; when Steve’s like this, this is enough to drive him crazy in itself.

“That’s it,” Bucky encourages him, but Steve’s pushy: Steve moves back, chasing Bucky’s touch and nearly sending Bucky coming for the change in angle.

“Don’t,” Bucky’s hand slides, gripping hard against the cheek of Steve’s ass hard enough that Steve gasps for it. “You don’t get that yet.”

Because fuck if Steve can be _patient_ , even for something _he_ , specifically, wants.

And the little punk has the nerve to whine, _again_ , and falls flat against the bed with a huff; Bucky only just saves from getting pulled hard enough to be beyond stopping the orgasm waiting hot at his groin and bright behind his eyes.

“You’re impossible,” Bucky lets the words get punched out of him in a single breath as he settles back between Steve’s thighs but doesn’t slide far between because he can feel it, he can tell: that’s the last full thought that’s going to get out of his mouth, because the build, the pressure, it’s rising. It’s pressing on his lungs. He’s almost pushed past unmaking.

“Alright,” Bucky rasps, holding Steve’s hips tight enough to bruise, barely moving against Steve’s skin: “alright, I’m,” his voice breaks, and it’s more of a choke that follows: “I can’t—”

And Steve gasps in a way that echoes more like a whimper, and Bucky’s entire body is primed, is a livewire of want and the air itself around him creates a contact against him that burns.

“Gotta come, Steve, got to,” Bucky forces out, sounds like he’s goddamn dying and his body’s beyond him now, there’s no control left in him over what’s to come: “can’t—”

His hips thrust upward only on instinct and then he’s coming, goddamn spilling everything in him, marrow and blood and heart and soul and so much fucking spunk he’s never going to come again ever, he’s sure of it, and his chest is on fire, his mind is a blank slate and his pulse is outside of himself, but so fucking fast, so fucking heavy and he swims around it like a separate entitiy, not least because he doesn’t have a choice in the matter; not least because his bones are broken, have taken a fucking vacation and have no interest in holding him together or giving him shape—not least because he feels everything in the whole world and is overwhelmed by it; not least because the first thing he knows again is Steve’s body against his body and he’s consumed by it.

“Buck,” is the first sound that he can discern besides the rasp of his own lungs, and the heartbeat that’s vaguely registering again as his own: “Buck, Buck, Buck,” and Steve’s voice is wrung raw but so sweet, always so fucking sweet.

“That good enough?” Bucky asks, surprised that the words come out at all. It’s a moot point, because one: there’s nothing he can do about it if it _isn’t_ , because his dick needs a fucking minute; and two: the lines of come on Steve’s ass and back are fucking impressive, so yeah—it’s enough.

“ _Please_ ,” Steve whines, breathy and perfect, and sure, yes: that’s why he asked. For that word, in that voice.

Beautiful.

“You ready now?” Bucky leans down and speaks against the rough of Steve’s stubble, kisses against his cheek, and Steve’s whole body loosens just that impossible bit more and falls as he exhales, already sounding a little ruined:

“ _Please_.” 

And Bucky pushes a his dry right thumb against Steve’s hole one more time as his left hand cups through the come on Steve’s back, palms it from over Steve’s ass and oh fuck— 

But Steve’s going to sound a hell of a lot more wrecked once Bucky’s done with him.


	12. Twist the Wrist (.5, 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky shouldn’t have been surprised, when he first realized how much Steve wanted this. And maybe, deep down, he wasn’t. Maybe what was surprising was that it took Steve—loudmouthed uncowed self-preservation-less _Steve_ —as long as it did to ask, to take Bucky’s right hand on the curve of his ass and brace it at his hip while coaxing Bucky’s left hand to the cleft of him instead: needy and laid bare.

Bucky shouldn’t have been surprised, when he first realized how much Steve wanted this. And maybe, deep down, he wasn’t. Maybe what was surprising was that it took Steve—loudmouthed uncowed self-preservation-less _Steve_ —as long as it did to ask, to take Bucky’s right hand on the curve of his ass and brace it at his hip while coaxing Bucky’s left hand to the cleft of him instead: needy and laid bare.

But Steve had, and now it was a given, where they are: Steve spread out, ass in the air, back arched and head down, Bucky’s smooth vibranium touch tracing the ridges of skin at Steve’s hole.

“All of it,” Steve says in a deep hush of sound, low and silken: a caress. Bucky shivers for it as he circles Steve’s entrance with his come-slick fingers, flexing at the knuckles and letting what’s caught in the joins of metal slip free so he can wet the opening as best as possible before he charts his assault, knowing Steve will writhe and cry out and push against each touch he welcomes like a glutton for punishment, like Bucky’s fingers are instruments of some transcendental bliss, and if Bucky can put them to this use, goodness and rightness and wholeness instead of ruin: if Bucky can give this with this arm, can make Steve feel so _much_ that Steve’s pulsing-pounding pleasure becomes Bucky’s in kind, unrelenting?

If he can do that, then so many things feel worth it, somehow. So much pain is transmuted into joy when Steve’s mouth falls open and soundless want drops from his lips and his tongue curls around the flesh of Bucky’s fingers on the right as Bucky plays the pads of each against the plush of Steve’s bottom lip—when Steve growls, needy in a way only Bucky has the power to meet and fulfill and that’s heady, that’s heaven-sent, Bucky’s tall like a god and strong like a mountain and dizzy with it, in moments like this when Steve bites out:

“All of it, c’mon,” like Bucky doesn’t want it just as bad, like Bucky isn’t aching to see his hand swallowed inside Steve’s body, his ass yawning around it, eating him up—like Bucky is somehow less interested in sinking deep in Steve and teasing, stoking, walls and glands, as the last of the shape left in Steve’s wrecked-to-fuck hole flutters around his knuckles: fuck.

 _Fuck_ , and Bucky exhales like wingbeats, soft where his heart pounds but the same rhythm to it somehow; Bucky slides his index finger to the golden line etched between the plates, halfway between one knuckle and the next, all in one smooth push and Steve gasps for it, tenses even as he moves into it, even as Bucky knows it has to burn against whatever ease his own fucking come can offer to the stretch. But Steve is warm and he’s clenching in that way he has that feels almost like curiosity, almost like a desire to chart the way Bucky fits inside Steve, and goddamn is it intimate.

Goddamn, is it sexy as hell.

“Greedy,” Bucky murmurs, presses his face into the small of Steve’s back as Steve rolls backward into the finger inside him: “so fucking hungry for it.” 

“Always,” Steve confesses immediately, shamelessly: “god, always,” and Bucky grins as he starts to pulse a second finger, back and forth against just the rim of Steve’s hole, and the noise that escapes the vise of Steve’s throat is a scream and a lover’s touch all at once, cacophonic and divine: “come _on_ —”

“We need more slick,” Bucky answers idly as he works his middle finger in; he’s grabbed some to play at Steve’s hole already, though only just enough to slip in at best, knowing his come on Steve’s skin would be drying fast, always a low-yield option, pure wanton indulgence, but even so they’ll need to—

“No.” Steve’s voice is a single note: unwavering.

“Steve—”

“ _No_ ,” and when Steve clenches down around him then, there’s no argument in it, only a sense of finality. Only Steve could make his ass speak fucking volumes, Jesus.

“Make me feel it,” Steve hisses out, but the sound is sweet, and Bucky knows better, he does—he always does—but his third finger is already playing at Steve’s entrance, knows from experience that Steve can take it, that come and spit and that paltry bit of lube—and maybe Bucky's hands know it, know by rote just how much is needed at bare minimum, maybe he knows by touch alone and takes on instinct only as much as Steve would want because Bucky _knows_ , by instinct, what it is here and now that Steve _wants_ —but it _can_ be enough for them as they are, if only just; enough to stretch Steve wide even if it’s still goddamn insanity: Bucky makes himself hold off, though. Forces himself to still his hand.

“You,” Bucky leans in and noses at Steve’s spine again; “you—”

“I want it,” Steve breathes. “Want that hurt, wanna feel you, wanna feel you so much Buck, please,” and his breath cuts, his voice cracks: “please, come _on_.”

And Bucky bites his lip before he twists his wrist, starts stroking a finger against Steve’s prostate until Steve arches for the pressure as Bucky moves to touch each finger there in turns, a drumbeat that’s nothing to the pulse Bucky can feel coursing through Steve, shaking every cell. It’s only when Steve starts to shake, unable to steady it or unwilling or both, that Bucky adds the third finger, lets Steve’s panting for the searing of it melt beneath his keening moan that’s made of light.

“So good,” Steve gasps: “oh god, Buck, it…”

Bucky starts to thrust them, in and out, turns and spreads and drags and then he reaches up with his right hand again and plays fingers at Steve’s lips and they’re taken between in an instant, and he slides them in and out in the same rhythm, Steve moaning for it, tonguing against the pads of each of Bucky’s fingers just like he squeezes against the ones in his ass: perfect synchrony. Magnificent.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Steve’s pushing into Bucky’s fingers, now, and it’s his momentum that gets Bucky’s little finger just inside his rim, and Steve gasps when he feels it, and Bucky stills at the same, never quite willing to stretch Steve that far, knowing the way he’ll goddamn near split Steve apart and cut fierce in the process, but Steve wants it, and Steve can take it, Bucky knows, and hell: if Bucky knows it won’t kill him, or maim him, or send then world down around Bucky’s ears for more harm than Bucky can stand no matter what Steve wants, then Bucky’s useless for denying Steve like this—cracked open and honest and so full of want that he shines with it. 

“Fuck, come on,” Steve grinds down on all four fingers now, full enough that he can move almost any which way and Bucky’ll graze his prostate, sending him reeling; “come on.”

Bucky pushes his fingers into Steve’s mouth again, and Steve sucks them desperately, and it’s as Steve’s cheeks hollow around him that Bucky finally presses his hand, whole to the line of his knuckles into Steve and Steve’s mouth drops open, looses Bucky fingers but his ass clenches tight, like he’s afraid to lose what barely fit in the first place, like he’ll mould all that he is against the shape of Bucky’s fist in his ass so that it’ll never not fit, and fuck, _fuck_ but Bucky can’t help but start to slip his fingers out and then dance back in, pull again then dive and Steve’s keening, the breathy sobs are music, are godsent, and Bucky’s high on them just a little, loves the way the inhuman sensitivity, the sensors and tactility of the vibranium, of the tech embedded there can map all of Steve and feel him in ways unimaginable: a revelation, rather than a loss of anything in the trade.

“Je _sus_ ,” Steve whispers, a reaction or a genuine prayer, Bucky’s not sure which though it probably doesn’t matter. But Steve’s coming, and Bucky wasn’t even paying attention to Steve’s dick but he knows Steve can come untouched for this and that’s exactly what happens: Steve bites down on Bucky’s fingers as he sucks them back into his mouth on instinct; his orgasm is a beautiful tremble of muscles around Bucky’s hand inside him, and Bucky’s feels like it’s the rush of touch, of feeling the intricate threads of Steve’s undoing that makes him hard enough to think of coming in kind; it’s the heat of Steve’s body still warming his fingers on the left that drives him over the edge so quickly when he takes himself in hand.

Steve’s kissing Bucky’s fingertips, licking the swirling prints there when Bucky blinks clearly again, and Bucky leans upward, pressing lips slow and soft up the line of Steve’s back until he makes it to Steve’s neck, and cranes just so to kiss Steve’s beard.

“Now,” Bucky breathes hot, and Steve leans into the feeling; “shower.”

Steve huffs out a laugh, and lets Bucky bear some of his weight, still coming back to himself, as they work their way to the bathroom.


	13. Some Inarticulable Intimacy; (.5, 0)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve feels not better, or bigger, or more, exactly: the feelings are hard to hold not because they’re deeper but because they’re _louder_. And Steve never grasped how to temper what he was, who he was; Steve was never good at that, and didn’t bother learning to try.

Sometimes, Bucky thinks about what it might be like if he and Steve hadn’t been together back in Brooklyn. Not because he wishes they hadn’t: he’d never wish away a single goddamn minute they’ve spent with one another. No, what Bucky thinks about is being able to blame Steve’s near-unbearably cavalier attitude about pushing his limits—specifically in bed—on the serum; just another unavoidable side effect of signing up to be a lab rat, another consequence of _not thinking anything through, or ever considering your own goddamn well being, you fucking idiot, Jesus Christ_—

But no. 

No, Bucky is well aware that Steve Rogers would have asked Bucky to fuck him just short of dry with his whole goddamn hand even back then—the only difference being that Bucky would have said no, unequivocally and unrelentingly, and damn the way Steve got off on a little pain, and hell: still does. Because Bucky would _still_ say no if not for the fact they’ve discovered that even a little slick goes a long way with the metal, already inhumanly smooth and just in need of a path to slip in, for stupid little punks who don’t care about anything more than possibility, and fuck comfort besides; if not for the way Steve’ll heal any damage done before they even go another round—and if not for the way Steve won’t suffer, won’t bear punishment or damage for any of it, his lust for the sharpest edges, the most dangerous leaps finally suited to his means: his limits still made for pushing, as far as he’s concerned, but manageable for it. Mostly.

Bucky makes sure of that much.

So, as it stands: they’re in the shower, and Bucky’s got his hands on Steve’s legs, holding his whole weight off the floor as he spreads him wide; Bucky’s on his knees with his face at Steve’s ass, licking soft against his entrance to soothe what aches remain; few, it seems, which gives Bucky a little surge of pride every time—Steve’s barely red around his hole anymore, and he’s not even flinching the slightest, not even hitching just so against Bucky’s tongue. No, he’s moaning little gentle breaths against the spray of water, gorgeous and mellifluous and warm in Bucky’s chest because Bucky took care of him right.

Bucky _is_ taking care of him _right_.

He’s surprised, though, when Steve’s hands slide slow into his hair: if Steve’d grasped at the wet strands hard, pulled, canted hips back into Bucky’s mouth a little mindless, that would have been typical, but Steve’s touch is sure but delicate, tender as he separates the hair to part at the side, the center, to veil over Bucky’s eyes even though they’re closed as he suckles around Steve’s hole, tending vigilantly as it flutters, given wholly to the task until it’s done fully enough that Steve’s greedy fucking hole is ready to pull Bucky’s tongue inside—but Steve’s hands are gentle. Steve’s hands are stroking Bucky’s hair, counting every strand like each one is priceless, massaging careful fingertips against Bucky’s scalp until Bucky’s lips are parting, until Bucky is sighing against the swell of Steve’s ass, bowing his face against the curve.

“You’re so fucking good to me,” Steve murmurs, one hand slipping from Bucky’s head to his shoulder, toward the first plates of metal before he slides his touch back up Bucky’s neck.

“Always,” Bucky exhales, before sitting back up and licking a stripe up just under Steve’s balls, then focusing back on the soft pink of his hole.

“I fucking love you,” Steve’s saying, voice low and languid and molten low in Bucky’s belly. “I love you so fucking _much_.”

And Bucky’s struck by the words, sentimental for the pitch of them, and leans back just enough to kiss the soft flesh of Steve’s ass before he circles Steve’s entrance again with the flat of his tongue. He’s only just starting to feel the tease of that ring of muscle working against the touch of his ministrations when he feels cold at the crown of his head, before Steve starts working his fingers, spreading the chill with his touch.

“ _I’m_ taking care of _you_ , punk,” Bucky tries to growl, but it’s too soft; Bucky doesn’t pretend he’s anything but putty in Steve’s hands when Steve washes his hair, some inarticulable intimacy in it, adoration and absolution and something biblical and immense inside of the touch and then Bucky’s lowering Steve and easing his balance; then Bucky’s getting to his feet, looking up at Steve even as Steve’s hands move with him, never untangle from his hair even as he watches Bucky move, drawing shapes against Bucky’s scalp even as he meets Bucky’s gaze and just stares, open like he’d be bleeding from it if it weren’t for Bucky himself: the trust there. The trust is blinding, deafening, breathless and electric in Bucky’s blood even while it feels like calmness, like softness, like comfort: like home.

“I know,” Steve tells him simply, doesn’t stop drawing spirals on Bucky’s scalp even as he’s seemingly fixated, tethered to Bucky unblinking, eye to eye.

“But we take care of each other,” he says, and Bucky leans, Bucky braces his hands on Steve’s body, and Steve uses his grip in Bucky’s hair to pull him in even though he doesn’t need to, even though Bucky’s already making his way to Steve’s mouth, to kiss him full and whole, to breathe him in as Steve does the same, no more or less than everything in goddamn world held between them.

All Steve’s up to is this, Bucky knows—could tell before by the set of the muscles in his legs, can tell now in the way his chest rises and falls under Bucky’s hand but his heartbeat is steady, sated, smooth and Bucky lets it be, lets Steve draw circles against his scalp, swirls set to tangle his hair as he works a lather into nothing, just to pour more shampoo on and start the process again, the suds like a laquer, the soft sounds they make as they build and burst hypnotic when paired with the ebb and flow of Steve’s breathing; the sluice of the shower in droplets running down their skin. It’ll take a little longer, once they’re rinsed and dried, before Steve’s ready to take the reins on much more than changing the sheets—physically, either one of them would be able to push through exhaustion and discomfort past any barrier of stamina, but the real difference between them is mental, emotional. Bucky’s not sure whether he lost the soft-hearted boy he used to be in the war, or at Hydra’s hands and then relearned it different with Steve in his arms again, or if he just learned between all those years, all that time and all the suffering it held, how to hold it and weather it, balance and breathe around it, even if electrical currents and ice forced his hand to master the technique; but Steve? 

Steve feels not better, or bigger, or more, exactly: the feelings are hard to hold not because they’re deeper but because they’re _louder_. And Steve never grasped how to temper what he was, who he was; Steve was never good at that, and didn’t bother learning to try. So Steve doesn’t have any means for fighting the way they overcome him, can’t push forever against what they demand even if those demands are hot and heady and overwhelming and exquisite—maybe they cost more for it, even, because things like that don’t sink secret, insidious into cracks and nudge them bigger, no: things like that that overflow gladly and are made room for, they exceed almost without noticing until everything topples but it’s gorgeous on the way down. And Steve can let it happen. Steve can ride that wave and come wholly apart because Bucky’ll catch him, carry him, hold him until he gets his feet back and the fact that Steve knows that, that Steve believes it so deep in his bones—that’s always been, and always will be, a goddamn gift.

Bucky pulls back, mouthing at Steve’s lower lip as he does, only because he feels Steve’s breath start to strain where his hand’s still on Steve’s chest: only just, but Bucky wants this to be nothing more taxing than standing, than being, than living and that simple fact feeling sweet. If he slips a hand between Steve’s crack and presses a knuckle at his hole and waits to feel the anticipatory clench, it’s not for anything save to know Steve’s well recovered, and maybe to catch the thrilled little jump of Steve’s pulse when he presses his mouth to Steve’s throat just in time.

But then he’s pulling Steve under the cascading water, and he’s washing his skin, and it’s its own kind of thrilling. 

Steve moans when Bucky’s hands bury in his hair, and hell: that’s its own kind of breathless joy.


	14. Too Good for Any God to Touch; (.75, 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This, Steve knows, is something far beyond what he deserves.

This, Steve knows, is something far beyond what he deserves. 

He knows it every single time they’re here, like this, every single time he’s this surrendered to sensation by choice, for the sake of absolute desire: his mind clear enough to savour each feeling as he surfaces fully, after Bucky tends to him, carries him when he not only oversteps his limits but obliterates them, more than he’s ever dared in any other place or time, in battle or on missions or in back-alley fights—no, just here, just in _this_ space, with those arms and that body, heart and soul and goddamn unspeakable feeling. 

He blinks without any haze in it, his muscles ache but _want_ without any emptiness in the promise of it, like they’re ready to deliver again: he’s tossed the dirty sheets in the corner hamper and the force of it, the sound of the impact had drawn Bucky’s attention from the kitchen— _Careful, tough guy, else you’re gonna be the dipshit explaining why there’s a goddamn dent in the wall above the come-soaked sheets_ , and fuck, fine, maybe Steve’s predictable about this sort of thing, at this stage in the game—and Steve had struggled with it going like this, at first. They’d never pushed quite so far before the serum—either serums—for simple pragmatism: the state of Steve’s health, for one, and having to balance clean bedding against shared laundry and limited resources, for another. And once Steve had lived through Project Rebirth, the way sensation was magnified, and more than that, the way that emotion was almost goddamn painful for how it burned in him incandescent and unmerciful and fierce in ways that were more gutting than a bullet, than a knife to the gut, but then more euphoric than he’d ever known the world to hold. He’d been afraid of it, and Steve’s not so blind to miss how he’s always turned fear into one of two things: rage, or willful ignorance. Fury, or walling off and burying deep with the kind of single-minded stubbornness his mother and his best friend, his other half, had been telling him his whole life was taken to unique heights by Steve alone. He’d favored the former with most things—horror at the inhumanity, grief for all the death, hate for so much, some days for everything—and he’d favored the latter with Bucky and Bucky alone, because the comparatively-few times they could touch, and hold, and love were overwhelming, dangerously so, and it was hard enough that just thinking about Bucky, whether the way he looked undressed or the taste of his skin or the way he filled Steve’s mind and Steve’s soul, good _god_ : it was hard enough to live with that every day with this new lens through which every experience, every ounce of knowing was filtered.

To give himself to it without barriers and boundaries could have seen them all killed. 

But this is a new world, and it’s his; this is damn well close to a new _life_ , and it’s _theirs_ , and Steve was so desperate, so wondering and heartsick and aching when Bucky came back, when Bucky was suddenly alive and the world didn’t feel in its every moment a little like his skin was being flayed off for sport, for some sick god’s amusement—he was _desperate_ to drown out the way that intensified _feeling_ had nearly ended him, swallowed him whole and left him for ruin, when Bucky fell; every part of him shredded and dissolved in acid, freezing and falling and shattering to dust again and again and again. He needed something to temper it, to dull it, to write over it and make it dim like an imprint, to wear it down until Steve could breathe better around it.

But that first time, once Bucky was well enough to drive Steve wholly under the waves of sensation and emotion; that first time, Steve had shivered in the comedown, the rise-up, and hadn’t known where to look, how to stand, how to see clearly and he’d clung to Bucky, limp in every limb save the hold of his arms, his hands: vise-like and sharp. His fingernails had drawn blood from Bucky’s skin for the force of his hold, and Steve didn’t know what to do with it. What to make of the fear of unknowing, the cold touch of loss when it was turned inward in such a way, to lose _himself_ : the way it echoed all the worst things he’d ever seen and done, felt and been, but at the same time had dissipated clean in Bucky’s arms, barely a trace of it against Steve’s skin, and the residue of before, of what had followed him into the ice and sat heaving under his ribs until the moment Steve saw Bucky’s face and watched his chest rise and fall—

That residue was dulling, was washing away already. 

And so Steve held to Bucky, braced against the well of panic, and let himself heal under Bucky’s hands.

And it was warm against his lungs with every breath, it melted that ice that had lived there so long all the quicker, to see how Bucky, in holding Steve steady and endless and unwavering and true—to see how it healed Bucky in turn, and to feel it between them, the way they grew together into something stronger, bigger than they’d ever been for the sake of feeling in ways so immense, for the sake of unmaking themselves and willingly, lovingly borrowing pieces of one another to rebuild, weaving each other into one another’s heart and soul.

By now, though: by now, Steve craves it, this emptying of himself: he suspects Bucky chalks it more up to his _disgusting lack of self-preservation_ , there’s a headiness to it that’s more than that, so much more. To be weightless and unspooled from the heartstrings, the strands of his DNA where all he knows is the touch against his skin except, at its deepest points, he’s not entirely sure what skin is or if he has it, and all he can count in his awareness is the fact that everything that makes him, everything he calls his own is cradled in a singular essence and he is vulnerable to the point of full dependence—for all that he feels big things like a crash from space to earth, he feels the aftermath like a blank slate; rebirth on high—and the first thing that comes to him after that feeling, that sensation of being cherished like glass in warm, steady hands skittered on terror at the beginning, until his mind regained itself enough to know that touch was Bucky’s, and to known by definition that there was nothing to fear in Bucky’s hands. Now, though: now, the genetic code of him scattered into shreds knows Bucky, recognizes him to the atoms and is so perfectly at ease, at home in his presence, and it’s that. It’s _that_ , that Steve pushes himself to find, to feel, to float away into and lie inside and let fill up his heart so that when he remembers, comes to know again that it’s beating, it’s this _feeling_ that courses from the center of his chest outward through his veins.

Also, sex with Bucky is a fucking revelation, and to press them both to obliteration is a goddamned _joy_.

But here, now: here, he’s climbed up and is riding the last soft touches of that liminal space, and he lets himself smile, adoring, at the ceiling as his eyes fall closed and his hands roam his own body, tracing the echoes that his muscles remember best: Bucky’s touch as he held Steve dear, soft, damn near sacred; as he guarded Steve’s immortal fucking soul as Steve relished how much he could feel, how full he could be with Bucky, Bucky, _Bucky_. How much this thing that seemed so much bigger than a single word, a single idea could sustain him, and keep him, and rebuild the world around him when his heart had come apart for the enormity of it all.

He’s breathing slow and deep, hand on his chest to take it all in and savor every piece when a hand laces through his own; when a body crawls atop him and straddles him near the knees.

Steve blinks, and his lips are still stretched around a grin—just as adoring, but softer, and maybe saturated deeper, more fully with want and feeling for it, but it doesn’t stay that way, because Steve’s eyes wander, and next to Bucky’s naked frame, perched just on the nightstand Bucky’d moved for the sake of chocolate Steve thinks he can still taste between his teeth if he steels himself and _tries_ : but on the nightstand sits two objectively innocuous items—a Stark-engineered thermos that serves no higher purpose than to keep things warm-to-scaldingly hot for days on end, and a bowl of ice cubes.

Steve can damn well feel his eyes dilate and his dick twitch in anticipation, and no small phantom recollection of the last time those objectively-innocuous items had served subjectively-

“Oh,” he breathes; doesn’t mean to, but the sound it almost punched from him, drawn from him—violent yet honeyed. Glorious on his tongue.

“Oh,” Bucky parrots back, brow raised; needling him, but also patient—waiting for something unspoken but clear as day.

“I’m good,” Steve confirms, even if he knows Bucky can see it, read it in every inch of Steve’s body and breath and being. He says it though, because that’s what Bucky wants, needs; and it doesn’t even come with an edge of exasperation anymore, when Bucky checks in on this knife-edge of Steve’s presence of mind, soundness of body. Part of it is he’s learned, he’s grown, if only situationally: hell if he’d concede that willingly anywhere else, with anyone else. Part of it, though, is absolutely that it gets Bucky’s mouth on him, Bucky’s dick in him, quicker.

The main part is that the less he lets his pride cockblock him, the sooner he gets _Bucky_. 

“Good,” is what Bucky says in reply, simple—though his eyes, his hands prove Steve’s insight true: Bucky’s always known him, will always know him. 

“‘Cause if you weren’t,” Bucky drawls just a little, and the rough whiskey heat of the sound catches in Steve’s bones, dances up his spine and draws a shiver; “I guess I’d have to just…”

Bucky leans and grabs an ice cube, twirling it around his tongue for show, and Steve’s skin is raised in gooseflesh, Steve’s pulse is tripping, Steve’s fucking ready.

“I’m really, _really_ good,” he tries to keep the whine from his voice, but given the wicked gleam that spreads through Bucky’s irises, he fails spectacularly. 

“We’ll see.” And Steve knows Bucky means it differently; doesn’t mean they’ll see if Steve’s alright, up for what’s to come: Bucky wouldn’t do it if he doubted that much even the slightest bit. 

No, Bucky means can Steve keep his hands to himself and his hips from thrusting upward when Bucky starts to tease him, starts to goddamn torment him until he loses his _mind_ , because that’s the game. Those are the rules.

Steve’s very bad at following rules, but these ones: _these ones_.

Bucky doesn’t wait for Steve to react much at all before he’s dropping what’s left of the ice cube onto Steve’s stomach and then sucking his balls—no, just the left, good _god_ —between cool lips into a fucking frigid mouth that has Steve gasping, tensing, feeling everything tenfold as Bucky swirls his tongue against the skin and folds his lips over his teeth to nip and pull at the flesh of his sac.

“Jesus _fuck_ ,” Steve moans, writhes as best he can without canting his hips upward; fists his hands in the sheets hard enough that he might be ripping holds but he can’t think, can’t tell, doesn’t give a good goddamn besides.

“Mmm,” Bucky hums idly, the vibration shooting electric through Steve’s veins as Bucky sucks hard, tracing the shape, the subtle cleft because Steve’s balls before he pulls off with an obscene sort of pop, and Steve whimpers a little as the comparative warmth of the room starts to heat up the skin before Bucky’s exhaling, hot and measured as Steve’s breath catches, his body set ablaze and he bites his lip to bleeding for the keen stuck in his throat.

“Bucky,” he stammers, pushing his head into the mattress, arching his neck where he can’t press up into Bucky’s mouth but his resolve, his restraint is withering quicker than even he could have anticipated; his chest is already heaving, and his cock is half hard despite the burn of temperatures vying for supremacy, tingling and prickling like needles and lightning conducting through his skin.

“Holy,” he pants, harder than he would have guessed, the air thinner than he might have known; “ _Buck_ , I—”

He’s distracted, only just noticing the way Bucky’s discarded ice cube had melted against Steve’s navel, pooled in the dip: he wants Bucky’s mouth on it. But he’s distracted: he doesn’t notice that Bucky’d taken a long drink of the near-fucking-boiling water he’d brought, suffering the burn without a sound before he dips back down, mouthing the right side of Steve’s sac and shaping his lips around the curve before he sucks and Steve downright howls.

“Mother _fucker_ ,” and it rings through the room, and it’s not _fair_ that the curl of Bucky’s devilish grin fits his mouth even better to the shape of Steve’s balls, but Steve can’t bring himself to be petulant about it, barely has enough time to process it at all before Bucky’s pulling back again and this time, _this time_ instead an open-mouthed exhalation of warmth?

This time, against the nearly-too-hot remnants of his scalding tongue beneath Steve’s dick, Bucky’s blowing a thin, controlled stream of cold across the wet flesh and Steve can’t take it, he can’t even fucking _think_ : his hips cant upward, his cock messily pressed against Bucky’s face, and he’s harder than he knew, the contact blissful as much as it’s agony, and the sound that punches from between his lips doesn’t have a name, but it’s _desperate_.

“You bastard, oh fuck,” and Bucky’s quicker, priming his mouth and sucking Steve’s balls in turn, tailoring the way he breathes to play off each sensation, to drive Steve that little bit closer to hellfire and nirvana. 

“Oh fucking,” and then Bucky’s suckling cold, tongue hot against his slit, and Steve can’t fucking see, his vision whiting out at the edges only heartbeats before it blanks out completely and Steve whines:

“You _bastard_ —”

“You know,” Bucky doesn’t even bother to tamp down his amusement, his glee in watching Steve come apart. “If I didn’t know better,” and then Bucky’s hand it wrapped around Steve’s dick near the base, cool and heavy with just this side of too much pressure:

“I’d think you didn’t like me very much.”

Steve fights to get enough air in his lungs to bite back:

“You sonuvabitch,” but that’s all he gets, that’s all there is before Bucky’s licking the head of his cock and Steve’s coming hard and fast; Bucky swallows more of him into his still-cool mouth but Steve’s on fucking fire, and it’s terrible and trembling and too fucking good for any god to touch.

Steve’s still panting, lungs sore for the strain of it, when his vision comes back to rights.

“You ready to tap back in, then,” Bucky says, just a little mockingly for the way Steve’s still breathless, but mostly playful—Steve’s smacks halfheartedly at Bucky’s chest in retaliation, and Bucky just laughs at him, golden and bright, and Steve bites his lips as he catches his breath, basking in that sound.

And then he’s surging upward, sucking that laughter deep between his lips and taking it into himself as he kisses Bucky thoroughly, wantonly, and it’s a _hell yes_ to answer the question, but so much more it’s a _thank you_ ; it’s _I can’t always believe that you’re real_ , it’s _the way you take care of me is something I’ll never fully know how to fit in my chest but I will live the rest of my life and everything after figuring it out and making sure the space there is worthy to hold it_ and it’s _you’re divine and the taste of you is better than water or air_ —

It’s all of those things. 

That said: it’s also a feint—Steve’s legs having used the time spent shifting their bodies to slide around Bucky’s knees, hooking his thighs; and between lips and tongues and bites and gasps Bucky feels it, susses out that crucial-extra-thing in Steve’s mouth on his own just a moment too late; but a moment enough that it gives Steve time to smirk against Bucky’s lips, bite at the corner and pull away at just the last moment, the last blink so as not to miss a single breath shared with Bucky that close before he leans back and uses the momentum of his retreat to flip them and land hard, bracketed over Bucky’s body and looming, heart pounding with promise because now Bucky’s laid out for him, and that simple fact is still, always, enough to make him just a little dizzy. So he leans in, and licks into Bucky mouth again, and gets lost in it, because he can.

Because he’s the luckiest sonuvabitch in the whole universe, and he _can_.


	15. Equal Opportunity Purveyor (1.25, 19)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sometimes,” Bucky pants, and Steve has to take a second to remember the course of the words from before: _fuck but I cannot believe you_—”I just wish those words were real things,” Bucky gasps, and Steve knows it’s meant to pass as a rebuke, a complaint, but Bucky’s breath is growing too short for Steve to even _kind of_ take it seriously.

Sometimes, Steve wonders if they’re taking undue advantage of the technology in their lives.

Sometimes he wonders. But standing naked as he opens the door for the robot he’s long since lost any shame in front of, holding a stack of _more_ takeout that Steve didn’t have to put clothes on to get himself?

That’s the sort of thing that usually cuts his intermittent wondering off at the legs.

“Sometimes,” and the word’s in Bucky’s voice, rather than in Steve’s head—exasperated and resigned but fond and _so much better_ —“the words ‘fuck, but I cannot _believe_ you, Rogers’,” and Bucky eyes him narrowly, hand almost perfunctorily working his dick where he sits bare on their sofa, a bowl Steve’s pretty sure was last used for soup settled between his knees. Steve wonders, for just a moment, whether they should dedicate a special piece of kitchenware for this specific purpose. Not because _Steve_ minds, of course—Steve very emphatically does _not_ mind one bit—but like, maybe for guests or something.

But then Bucky’s fingers are playing with the head of his cock in that _way_ he has, graceful and lilting and bored almost, except his lips start to part and give him away as he reaches with the tip of a vibranium finger and angles so that he slides one of the almost-imperceptible joins in the metal along the slit of his cock, a perfect fucking fit that draws a perfect fucking moan. And fuck, if Steve’s hands weren’t full of the latest addition to their refueling supplies—sushi and pizza and wings, because the coupon included wings. And they might be rich beyond imagining, all backpay and superhero work, and they may live under the roof of a billionaire, but they’re kids of the Depression and the coupon said _free wings with your choice of sauce_ and that was nice enough of them, really, even though Steve didn’t bother picking one. A sauce, that is.

He’s got his own.

But: if Steve’s hands weren’t full with said supplies, as Bucky runs the ridge of his finger along the tip of his dick, line for line, neck thrown back and throat bared, Steve’s mouth would be on it in a heartbeat, sucking the line of those muscles, tonguing the beat of that pulse, tasting, savouring, _wanting_ because nothing could taste better, nothing in his hands or in the whole of the world could taste better than Bucky.

Not even _close_.

But then Bucky’s adding pressure with his hand from the root to the shaft, twisting just the slightest bit and Steve knows he’s close from the pace of his breath, and Steve pauses, stills entirely with arms still full, just to watch as Bucky works himself up to climax.

“Sometimes,” he pants, and Steve has to take a second to remember the course of the words from before: _fuck but I cannot believe you_—”I just wish those words were real things,” Bucky gasps, and Steve knows it’s meant to pass as a rebuke, a complaint, but Bucky’s breath is growing too short for Steve to even _kind of_ take it seriously. In fact, Bucky’s breathing’s so strained, and his neck is tilting back impossibly further, throat exposed like an invitation, that part of Steve is about to throw their food to the ground and say fuck it, they can eat from the carpet—but Bucky’s panting so hard between each syllable that none of it holds weight, least of all when he chokes out:

“Wish they were things I could say, and believe for even half a second. Things that had any sort of meaning or truth, y’know?” And his fingers are teasing the head of him, and Steve wants to be the one doing that as much as he’s relishing just watching, just paying such close attention that being a player in the game he can’t possibly manage, and it’s an embarrassment of riches is what it is; it’s everything he never thought to want or deserve and Bucky’s struggling to speak but he’s a stubborn motherfucker—and fact that the world forgot because Steve was known _first_ for being stubborn because it was his defining trait for so goddamn long, where Bucky had other things to sing his praises to the world; they forgot that James Buchanan Barnes was able to stand toe to toe with Steven Grant Rogers for a lifetime because he was as stubborn as a brick fucking wall, the two of them too equally matched for their own good as Bucky keens, his voice a whine.

“Words that expressed my actual disbelief,” and Steve’s proud—if only for the _barest_ of moments, to know that if _his_ hand was at Bucky’s cock, Bucky would absolutely not have the capacity to form such words; it’s only a moment though, and barely that, because Steve is enamored, entranced as he always is by the sight of Bucky coming undone. 

“Disbelief, at just about _anything_ you could ask or say or do. Sometimes,” and the word itself bracks and Bucky unravels, as he just manages to aim for the bowl at his side and come into it, all milky translucence and everything Steve wants to swallow down his throat like ambrosia for the gods.

“Sometimes,” Bucky breathes, catches the air in his lungs around words as he goes boneless for just a little while, eyes closed:

“Sometimes, I just _kind_ of wish that.”

He’s beautiful, exquisite, more a work of art than Steve’s ever seen or could shape or imagine, and Steve wants to leap on top of him and fuck him so hard he forgets the world exists at all.

Steve settles though, in the moment, for putting their boxes of food on the coffee table and straddling Bucky’s hips, weight only just teasing his mostly-spent-but-not-uninterested dick, and kissing him long and hard until he’s breathless again: he may not yet have caught enough oxygen to recover fully from his organsm, to be fair, but the way his chest heaves anyway when Steve pulls back still feels like a goddamn triumph.

“I love you,” Steve says, because he feels it in his bones every moment of every day. “I love you so fucking much,” and he also says it—because he tries to be honest with himself—because Bucky’s own stamina’s built up a hell of a store of come in the bowl next to them on the couch cushion, and Steve’s fucking salivating because fuck.

 _Fuck_.

“Yeah,” and Steve knows Bucky rolls his eyes under his fluttered-closed lids; “feed me while I jack off your eel sauce,” he says, a little slurred, but his cock is getting more and more invested in the tease of Steve’s own against it, and Steve smirks as he pecks the corner of Bucky’s lips.

“Salmon,” Steve corrects him at the line of his jaw; “you know they don’t have eel sashimi.” Which is literally the _only_ failing of their favorite sushi joint.

“How clumsy of me,” Bucky deadpans, eyes still closed; “just slipped my mind, given all the other things that are _not_ taking up space in there.”

Steve chuckles, and reaches down to squeeze Bucky’s cock just the _tiniest_ bit; it doesn’t earn him a gasp, but Steve knows him well enough to see that it’s a _damn_ close thing.

“Feed me,” Bucky says again before Steve lifts the kiss that’s trailed back to the edge of his mouth; “show me you love me with food.”

Steve doesn’t want to lean away from Bucky’s warmth, but he can’t deny him. He’s taken such good care of Steve when he needed it most—he always does, always has, like this and in every other way they’ve ever faced; Steve _cannot_ deny him a goddamn thing.

It’s a very _good_ thing that Steve very rarely _wants_ to.

Steve holds a California roll—simple, easy—to Bucky lips as Bucky’s hand goes back to his dick; Steve’s angle doesn’t place pressure on his hips this time, so Bucky’s left entirely to his own devices in his ministrations. Which Steve’s entirely sure he does not approve of.

At all.

“Want some help?” he asks, but his hand’s joining Bucky’s before the words are out of his mouth.

“Can you feed me at the same time?” Bucky asks, and Steve’s hand pauses, because his first thought is to start jerking _himself_ off to feed Bucky _his_ come and Bucky, too, knows him too well: he smacks Steve’s wrist so that the motion jerks Bucky’s cock where Steve’s hand still holds it, but has gone still.

“ _Food_ , asshole,” Bucky grumps, and Steve laughs a little; chided, if only just, but so full of joy in this moment that he couldn’t stifle the sound if he tried.

And if Bucky had any doubts that he’d eased Steve back to top form, Steve can watch them evaporate as Steve grabs the base of Bucky’s dick and curls strong fingers around the length and works him fast but thorough, hitting every one of his most sensitive spots, twisting his wrist exactly where he knows it counts the most, grabbing the sushi he’d left untended at their side and holding it precariously between his lips before leaning down and feeding it tenderly to Bucky at the close of a moan just before he pulls a little harder, lets his thumb graze Bucky’s tightening balls and lifts the mostly-full bowl of milky white to the tip of him to spill into, and Steve’s fucking riveted by it, sounds more breathless than Bucky, who’s panting hard with his head tossed back, when Steve watches the pooling come like a starving man before a feast but that’s about what he is—for this, for _precisely this_ , he is fucking ravenous.

“Oh my _god_ —”

“Think that’s plenty,” Bucky slurs a bit, chest still heaving, and he’s not wrong, much as Steve wants to work him through a thousand more orgasms from the blissed out, over-stimulated space he’s floating in just now. But Steve kisses the pert bud of his nipple before he forces himself to get up and grab the leftover barbeque sauce they’d (Bucky’d) whipped up ( _pulled_ off?) earlier in the week from the countertop where it’d been warming closer to room temperature when Steve wanted pulled pork with the “Special S” sauce—he likes it better with wings, he’s not going to lie, so he’s fucking ecstatic, fucking vibrating to have the taste of his tongue and then to let the ginger play against the bittersweet perfection of _Bucky_ , slick against the fish in his mouth and he quickens his pace, eager to get to his meal but likewise unwilling to do the process anything less than full justice because _Steve Rogers_ gets to taste Bucky Barnes in every way, gets to have this unusual, maybe, but utterly exquisite indulgence and like hell is he going to take any piece of it for granted.

“You didn’t fucking _order_ that much sashimi,” Bucky finally interrupts his sacred task, and Steve sighs: it looks mixed enough, he just likes to be _sure_.

“Fine, fine,” Steve concedes, because Bucky was good to him tonight, so fucking good for the way he’d come in bulk like a comodity, like the taste of him, the savour isn’t worth more than the world and should be coveted and not spent lightly: to be spent on _Steve_ is a gift if there ever was one, and Steve brings the unspiced remnants to his lips and drinks, and watches keenly, unblinking as Bucky pupils dilate, as his eyes go darker still when Steve licks the sides of the bowl, desperate for every last drop.

He finally looks down to stir the ginger in just a little bit more with his fingertip, and if he lets his tongue swirl visibly around for Bucky to watch, then he can’t be blamed for it. He takes a piece of rice and fish and swirls it around, watches the subtle gleam, the unique thickness coat his morsel and much as he wants it on his tongue this very instant he offers it to Bucky first, who smirks and choses instead to lick his own flavor from Steve’s knuckle where the sauce had dripped.

“Think I’ll take the rest of my come straight up tonight, thanks,” Bucky snarks as Steve chews, relishes, and Steve’d bet on the fact that he’s feigning the _extent_ of his bonelessness, at the very least, to get Steve to grab for the dragon roll that’s Bucky’s exclusively, and bring a piece to his lips, feeding him ever so gently, watching the roll of his throat and the lift of his chest and every minute flutter beneath his skin: greedy. God, but Steve could watch Bucky breathe and swallow for the rest of his life and find new things to marvel at in it, and fuck: but he gets all of it, everything, so much more and he’ll never drink his fill.

Not _ever_.

“Your loss,” Steve comments softly; it’s a rebuke, in a way, but his voice is too caught up in how goddamn exquisite Bucky looks, tastes; how unbearably lucky Steve is to have him, to have _this._

“I’m an equal opportunity purveyor, myself,” and it’s almost a whisper, and he lets it permeate for a moment before his lips curl up sly, all four fingers gliding through the barbeque sauce and sweeping to his lips as he sucks Bucky’s honeyed spunk from each in turn.

“You’re too fucking delicious for anything less.” And Bucky’s cock is hard again, and Steve grins broadly before he leans in and kisses him senseless.

Though upon pulling back, breathless, Steve takes a minute—as he moves to balance more sashimi between chopsticks it took him arguably way too long to master, given that he’s supposedly a physical _specimen_ and that should probably include the fine motor skills required to _not_ have made all the sushi fall apart, all the time, for _months_ of actually _trying_ —but he takes a minute to appreciate the irony of what they’re doing, on a number of levels. They’re fucking non-stop for, so far as Steve understands or _wants like fucking burning_ , as long as they’re physically capable, in no small part because Tony Stark was being a smart ass.

And just now, Steve is idly swirling raw salmon in some garlic and sesame mixed with Bucky’s come because that same smart ass thought it would embarrass them if he gifted them one Christmas with a copy of a book about cooking with come. He’d deflated a little when they’d started displaying it, pride of place on the coffee table in their living room, sometimes opened to a recipe that was never exact, but if possibly _reminiscent_ of whatever they were eating and casually offering Tony while he was visiting their floor. It’d turned out to be a really great way of making him leave quicker than should be humanly possible.

But _fuck_ : if only Tony knew that they didn’t just bring it out to toy with him, but that they’d read it, and they’d tried it, and while Bucky had liked some of it, mostly for the novelty—Steve?

Steve had fucking _loved_ it.

And because _Bucky_ loves _Steve_ , Steve gets to love it just about as often as he likes.

“I lied.”

Steve’s jostled from his musing to meet Bucky’s amused gaze, only realizing belatedly that he’d not only made it through more than half the sashimi and is properly straddling Bucky once more, hips circling around lazily of their own accord. He raises a brow at Bucky, unsure of the context of his untruth just as Bucky waves a glaze-sticky finger holding a boneless—for convenience—chicken wing.

“It’s missing something.”

And just like that, Steve’s pooling come-sauce on his tongue and holding it near-reverently for Bucky to lean in and take from his willing mouth before Bucky goes back to his chicken, this time with a satisfied sound that goes straight to Steve’s dick, conveniently resting just atop Bucky’s and maybe Steve circles his hips with a little more intent as they polish off sushi and wings alike, and Steve finds ways to justify the remaining sashimi and wing sauce to use on the rest of what’s left from their mountain of takeout orders: because like Steve said—no thing of Bucky’s, no part of him, is ever to be wasted.

There’s still some of the barbeque left when Steve opens the obvious last remnants of their current gluttony: a telltale square box he flips open, and Bucky just rolls his eyes while Steve grins because they’ve had this conversation before.

 _Like anchovies, Buck,_ Steve had argued the first time, because, well. Saltiness, savory. Made absolute sense.

 _You don’t like anchovies, Steven,_ Bucky had tossed back, eyes narrowed warily.

 _Don’t kink-shame me,_ Steve had said, blank-faced and deadpan and Bucky’d laughed for a good five minutes before giving in.

“You’re disgusting,” Bucky says without any heat or weight behind it as Steve drizzles the last of the barbeque semen-sauce onto a five-cheese pizza.

“ _You’re_ disgusting,” Steve shoots back and tears the remaining pie in half, shoving his share in his mouth in a single go.

“Oh my god, you are a child,” Bucky says, but his eyes are wide and there’s so much joy behind them that Steve feels a warmth suffuse his body that has nothing to do with how turned on he is, how much weight his cock’s swollen with to meet the press of Bucky’s ever-stiffer erection.

“Only with you,” Steve says, open and honest and Bucky’s expression softens and Steve loves him so goddamn much that licking his lips and tasting Bucky above all else feels more like an act of worship than anything else.

“You feeling full?” Bucky asks him, after he forgoes his own slice of the pizza and feeds it to Steve, he impatiently takes it in a single bite again, then kisses Bucky hard.

“Nope,” Steve pops the consonant between his lips wantonly, and the corners of Bucky’s mouth quirk up only a second before his hands are underneath Steve’s thighs and he’s lifting Steve up to carry him, and Steve’s arms are draping around Bucky’s shoulders and the tip of Bucky’s dick is hard enough to strain and tease the underside of Steve’s balls and Steve moans as Bucky takes them back to the bedroom with a simple assessment of Steve’s persistent hunger:

“Excellent.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is important to note two things about this chapter:
> 
> 1) I did not invent the idea of come recipes and/or these come recipes specifically, they're definitely from [this cookbook](https://www.amazon.com/Natural-Harvest-collection-semen-based-recipes/dp/1481227041), which was indeed the inspiration for this chapter's kink; and
> 
> 2) It's been said outright and implied throughout in this fic, but here? Supersoldiers produce _much_ more come when they orgasm than the average male—which is how they use it for lube so comparatively-easily and fill each other up so often and all the other fun shenaningans.
> 
> This does not mean, however—as the chapter title shows—that Bucky didn't take a LOT for the team (aka just Steve) to make those fucking sauces.
> 
> **posted on behalf of the author while they’re in-isolation; edits and comment replies will be delayed


	16. What History Forgets (1.5, 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here's what history forgets: Steve Rogers wasn’t just stubborn, or scrappy, or fuelled by righteous indignation or jonesing for a fight left, right, and center. He was absolutely those, yeah, sure, but anyone with eyes could tell that much. And if they’d lived in a different time, anyone with eyes would have known Steve Rogers was in love with James Barnes, too, but because it looked a lot like stubbornness and rage and squaring for a punch—and overlapped with those things a hell of a lot more often than not—it hid in plain sight. 
> 
> Because no one bothered to figure that if one thing fuelled the fighting and the mulish resolve, the rage and the fire and the heart and the love: it was persistence. It was dedication. Steve Rogers, at the end of the day, was a being of pure passion, so when it came to Bucky Barnes? Steve honed all his attentions, all his fortitude and unrelenting fervor, every principle stood for with an almost—and often—violent resolution, and fought for with the willingness to die to keep it safe: it was Bucky’s. 
> 
> He was Bucky’s.

Here’s what history forgets: 

“You,” Bucky gasps, face screwed up so beautifully Steve feels it, heavy in his groin and bright in his chest; “ah,” and Bucky’s mouth falls open and his lungs heave and the sweat on his skin glistens because Steve isn’t just good at this, he’s a fucking expert, he’s the fucking universal authority on _this_ and Bucky’s lips are bitten red and slick and Steve swallows hard for it, but never once does he falter. 

Because here’s what history forgets, or else, more accurate probably: here’s what history never bothered learning in the first place. 

Steve Rogers wasn’t just stubborn, or scrappy, or fuelled by righteous indignation or jonesing for a fight left, right, and center. He was absolutely those, yeah, sure, but anyone with eyes could tell that much. And if they’d lived in a time where it was a thought that came easy in the face of due evidence, instead of a shame and a crime to hide in the dark, anyone with eyes would have known Steve Rogers was in love with James Barnes like people loved in films, in songs, in great epics and fairytales, because much as Steve tried to hide it—at first so Bucky wouldn’t see, and then because it _was_ a time where it’d get them busted bloody if they were lucky; much as Steve tried to hide it? He couldn’t help but to shine with it. Yet, because it looked a lot like stubbornness and rage and squaring for a punch—and overlapped with those things a hell of a lot more often than it did in any fairytales Steve knew—it hid in plain sight. 

Because no one bothered to figure that if one thing fuelled the fighting and the mulish resolve, the rage and the fire and the heart and the love: it was persistence. It was dedication. Steve Rogers, at the end of the day, was a being of pure passion, so when it came to Bucky Barnes? Steve honed all his attentions, all his fortitude and unrelenting fervor, every principle stood for with an almost—and often—violent resolution, and fought for with the willingness to die to keep it safe: it was Bucky’s. He was Bucky’s. 

History never bothered to figure it out, but Steve doesn’t mind. He’s spent his whole goddamn life figuring _Bucky_ out with the unwavering focus of all the feeling in him at once, and so when Steve leans down to lick a wet stripe up from between Bucky’s nipples to the raucous pulse in his throat, he grins, and he draws blunt teeth back down the way he came and tastes the shiver it causes before he stops the motion of his fingertips underneath Bucky’s balls, and presses harder in exchange with the opposite hand where it’s half-buried in Bucky’s ass. 

Because Steve is a goddamn _connoisseur_ of Bucky’s pleasure, of what makes him quiver and pant and break transcendent so Steve can put him together and wring ecstasy from his bones for every single piece Steve fits back into place. 

And if anyone had bothered to figure out it was passion that drove Steve Rogers more than anything else, at the _root_ of everything else, it would be absolutely no surprise that this specific achievement is maybe the only true point of pride Steve relishes for himself above all others; the only achievement he feels ownership of, that feels truly _earned_. 

“ _Ah_ ,” and that sound, _that_ cut-off, half-choked breath from Bucky’s throat that slices at just the right octave and breaks, oh; that’s proof of it. Of how well Steve knows this, knows _him_ , can amass every bit of himself and apply it to making Bucky feel good, make Bucky know bliss, make Bucky exist only inside what Steve feels for him, not least his desire, his absolutely blood-rushing _need_ for Bucky, something that long left simple lust in the dust, had evolved into something so much bigger, so much more vital and utterly consuming, distracting, compromising—and glorious for it, hot in his chest enough that he’d be trembling for it, save that he’s singularly devoted to the rhythm of his hands, the way they can find Bucky’s prostate and milk utter oblivion from him, inside and out all at once, pressure applied perfectly, delicate touch and swirling strokes, and sometimes Steve plays just that little bit dirty, bends at the neck and twists so he can press the weight of his tongue instead of the weight of his fingertip between Bucky’s balls and his cleft until Bucky keens and moans and cries before he goes back to his initial ministrations, driving Bucky to the edge over and again and kissing up his chest when his breath starts to drag just close to painful, easing him down and lilting over his prostate, touch like a caress, cherishing: he brings Bucky down and kisses at his sternum until his pulse beats just a little bit steadier before he dives back in, licks Bucky’s loose hole around his own finger at the knuckle and lets the way Bucky clenches and writhes suffuse him like victory, glorious and unbridled and unparalleled in all that world.

“You, you all, all,” and Steve’s circling from the inside now while massaging with an almost languid pace, but still a brutal pressure that has Bucky whimpering, downright fucking _mewling_ from the back of his throat through lips pursed, unravalled and uninihibted and serene while stripped raw: Steve is the undeserving guardian of that sight, unique in all the world for the privilege and he’s greedy for it. He’s greedy enough to let his hands move to Bucky’s hips for just an instant, to drag himself to that mouth and kiss so deep neither of them are safe from the burn of their lungs heaving by the end, and they wouldn’t want to be. They cling, and their eyes meet, and Steve feels it shiver through his bones, up and down his spine, the glazed intensity in Bucky’s gaze before he surges back down and sucks at Bucky’s opening for a long string of moments as Bucky pushes into the attention, begging with his body and then Steve’s finger is back to its work, goddamn worshipping, pressing Bucky toward release and tracing patterns softly to bring him back from the brink, over and again until the skin of Bucky’s chest is so red, so warm Steve can barely touch it, can barely keep from curling into it and living safe against that heat for the rest of his days.

“You always had,” Bucky forms words, breathless but full as Steve still keeps pressure on Bucky’s prostate from within while drumming fingertips in a way that looks idle but is so damningly, perfectly timed to Bucky’s joy—it’s when Steve’s eased him down before ramping him back up that words find decipherable shapes and Steve drinks in the rough draw of breath and sound from that throat like milk and ambrosia, like a gift of the fucking gods.

“Fingers,” Bucky sighs, chest still heaving and overheated; “always such fucking gorgeous fingers, Stevie," and Steve lets his arm straighten, just pressure against Bucky’s taint, scorching, as he leans up to suck at Bucky’s neck, hard and needy until the pounding of Bucky’s blood there is a presence against Steve’s teeth and Steve’s jaw drops like he can take in that perfect proof of life, savour it on his tongue and swallow it down to live in his chest always; _always_.

“Wa—,” Bucky gasps; snags on the catch of a breath as his spine arches, and the motion increases the pressure against Bucky’s skin, and Steve chances a quick glance at Bucky’s hard length, neglected and for good reason: despite Bucky’s initial protests, Steve had gorged himself on the fruits of Bucky jacking himself off for Steve’s appetite; he hadn’t counted, a bit too enthralled by the picture Bucky’s painted, coming over and again so Steve could dip and slurp into the mess of it, the gift of it like an offering, the decadent flavor—Steve was going to give the perfect curve of that gorgeous dick the rest it deserved, until the red flush was full arousal, until the serum took the friction burn away entirely. And if Steve laid kisses close enough to the base to breathe in Bucky’s scent and test how quick, how interested the twitch of him proved in response, well.

That was Steve's prerogative. That was Steve's goddamn _joy_.

And that’s another thing that history gets wrong, that _does_ bother Steve, if he’s in a mindset to be bothered: people always knew they were inseparable, but the assumption was that Bucky followed Steve’s lead somehow, when the reality had been, has _always_ been, that Bucky was there for Steve whenever he needed him, however he needed him: Bucky filled his gaps and knew the weaknesses Steve’d never name for himself and Bucky never spoke to it, never called them out, just did and filled in the voids while he filled all of Steve’s being: he stood at Steve’s side and made as Steve’s shield while he walked at Steve’s back, not to follow, but to give Steve what he needed at his most stubborn, least gracious, that was the only way to see it done.

Bucky was everything, _everything_ , and he was all that Steve had ever needed; learning what Bucky needed had been the work of a lifetime, and it was never going to be done, and Steve was grateful for little else in the whole universe more than he was for that simple fact.

But it does bother him, this unthinkable idea that _Bucky_ of all people lagged behind somehow, in any possible way, for any fathomable reason; it bothers him, their assumptions and the things they don’t understand, but between Bucky’s thighs he’s the only person whose knowledge of the truth matters a good goddamn, and fuck if he’s not going to keep proving it, keep giving every ouce of what he knows, what he’s learned and seen and studied at the altar of Bucky fucking Barnes and can muster in full and gather precious to give, to draw from Bucky every ounce of rapture, every kind of euphoria the cosmos could hold because he deserves as much, and nothing less.

And sure, Steve puts his everything into all that he does—the muscles and the strategy, heart and soul, body and bones: every day he does; but for Bucky.

For _Bucky_ , this, _this_ : Steve gave, Steve _gives_ his heart and soul over and again and unrelentingly, unreservedly, never ceasing and holding nothing back.

“Watched your hands,” Bucky sighs, and the words are almost lost in the give and take of breath, dazed and lost and seemingly grateful for it, blissful in it, boneless with it; “before, before we—”

“Same,” Steve breathes, mouth gentling while his fingers stay relentless, because he knows what Bucky means—Bucky’d made comments, admired his artist’s hands and Steve wanted to believe more inside them than had made any sense, but his heart was weak in so many ways, and this was no exception, he couldn’t help it, then to now. 

“Watched yours too,” Steve confesses, not that Bucky didn’t already know, wasn’t already aware of how much Steve had worshipped his body, then to now.

“Wanted them,” and Steve turns to nose at Bucky’s right hand as he presses simultaneously, inside and out, against Bucky’s prostate and lets him goddamn shake for it.

“Wanted them, wanted _you_ everywhere,” Steve murmurs, and when he starts to pulse his touch, draw pleasure like a portrait, with the dedication of crafting a masterpiece: every want he’d burned with when he thought he could never have, he gives to Bucky. He takes Bucky’s fingers, so long adored, into his mouth, sucking and nibbling and lining teeth in the ridges of his knuckles.

“You take such fucking good care of me, Buck,” Steve presses sloppy lips to Bucky's palm, sacred, prayerful with it. “you always have.”

“Steve,” Bucky gasps; whines, but there’s so much weight to it, so much meaning in it even as it wisps—unfathomable.

“Look,” Steve slides a hand from beneath Bucky’s length and up his side, dipping against each swell of muscle and tracing Bucky’s jawline, his cheekbones: marvelling. “Fucking gorgeous,” Steve murmurs, wondering; “fucking _gorgeous_.” He slides back down, kissing down Bucky’s chest and nuzzling into the curls at his groin, both hands finally giving a rest against Bucky’s prostate only to come and cup around Bucky’s balls, barely touching, his breath heavy against the tightening skin.

“You’re unbelievable,” Steve exhales; “can’t believe you’re real sometimes,” and it’s true.

“You talking to me or my dick?” Bucky says, breath still not caught but enough of it there to propel his snark.

“And still excited,” Steve lines the tip of his nose against Bucky’s cock, up and down; healthy pink, wholly recovered from the abuse of his hand in service of Steve’s desires. 

“Gonna take care of you now, babe,” and Steve can’t help it, can’t resist the pull of the well worked-open hole that he can press a finger from both hands into, now, and dance along Bucky’s prostate almost playfully, with something damn near like violent fervor.

“Just tell me when you’re ready,” he breathes near Bucky’s nipple, fire swelling as he feels the skin pebble hard for the sensation; “I can do this all day.” 

“You’re such a fuckin’ punk,” Bucky huffs breathily, and Steve just presses the curl of his grin into Bucky’s skin; presses the deft rhythm of his fingers into Bucky’s ass all the more ardently and Bucky groans, whines high and wanton: 

“Jesus _Christ_.”

“Mmm,” Steve leaves kitten licks along the curve of Bucky’s ribs, the planes of his abs. “A punk that can pull that kinda sound out of you, though,” he teases; “figure that’s worth it.”

And Steve—expert that he is in all that Bucky is and needs and wants—knows Bucky’s ready, and so he works his fingers in deeper, quicker, more relentless until Bucky’s shaking, babbling, and coming hard all over himself, pawing at Steve as Steve slides up to clean Bucky’s skin with his lips.

“Worth it,” Bucky whispers, when the sounds he makes start to make any sense at all, his hands threading through Steve’s hair. “You’re worth it, you’re, you,” he breathes out long and slow: “ _Steve_.” 

“Someone’s fucked out,” Steve kisses Bucky’s hip and looks up at him through his lashes.

“Always worth it, Steve,” Bucky’s eyes drift closed, and Steve’s not sure how much is exhaustion, or the comedown, or the god’s honest truth. “Worth everything, worth the goddamn world.”

And Steve knows—as he knows more about Bucky than anything else in his world; than anyone else knows about this man or ever has—Steve knows no matter why it escape from Bucky’s lips, it’s real, and honest, and Steve feels his heart trip and swell and sing for it, all at once.

“Now get your goddamn mouth on me, asshole,” Bucky says, in the very same tone as the words that came before; “my dick was fine twenty minutes ago.”

And Steve laughs, god, but he laughs, and he takes the tip of Bucky’s cock between his lips like a starving man; with _pleasure_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **posted on behalf of the author while they’re in COVID quarantine; edits and comment replies will be delayed**


	17. Just a Fun Fact (1, 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Did you know,” Steve says, almost conversationally as he draws back less to catch his breath and more just to nuzzle the wet evidence of his hard work thus far before he dives right back in and redoubles his attentions: “not everyone can do this?”

“Did you know,” Steve says, almost conversationally as he draws back less to catch his breath and more just to nuzzle the wet evidence of his hard work thus far before he dives right back in and redoubles his attentions: “not everyone can do this?”

Bucky moans a little, hums a little; not wholly present to the words but still too coherent for Steve’s tastes.

Speaking of which: he pulls back again, licking an impulsive stripe across the rounds of Bucky’s balls, draws a line across where he’d apparently neglected enough for it to send a full-body shudder through Bucky’s frame.

Steve grins, and presses the curl of his lips to the curve of Bucky’s spit-slick sac before he demonstrates his point, rolling his tongue to expert cup the shape of Bucky’s balls first on the left, flicking upward, nudging over, weighing delicate and wanton and worshipful until Bucky whimpers, until Steve closes his lips around to press full before he moves to the right and repeats the very same.

“Biologically, I mean,” Steve whispers, more so that the breath of it comes cool, draws shivers when it hits the damp and over-sensitised skin Steve’s nudging with the tip of his nose, the subtlest of swings back, and forth, and back. 

“Never thought about it, but,” and Steve rolls his tongue tighter now, deliberate and exemplifying as he slides tastebuds along the ridge of Bucky’s scrotum, pressing into it knowingly as he mouths: 

“Just a fun fact.”

It’s not, though— _just_ that. Even if he’s never told Bucky as much. They’d been each other’s first, going all the way when they were young but Bucky’d got his share of suckjobs where Steve hadn’t had anything more than a few hands on his cock before they got together, but Bucky had been very, _very_ clear: Steve’s tongue was something of a miracle—the way he barely had to learn how to fit his mouth around that thickness, that length, but more how he knew, like an instinct, how lick and cradle and gentle around the hang, nudging into tension the full girth of Bucky’s sac as he curled his tongue edge to edge until Bucky was so close, Steve could just pull back and open his mouth to fit the head of Bucky’s dick and swallow. Just a funny little quirk they’d all played around with as kids, tongues stuck out and giggling with it but suddenly it was a godsend that made Bucky come so fucking hard, Steve would sometimes shudder with the force of it himself, by proxy.

It felt special. Steve felt like a king, to make Bucky come apart that way with a part of _his_ body—for all that Bucky loved it, for all that Bucky goddamn _worshipped_ Steve’s scrawny frame, Steve himself could never see it but this, this little thing about _him_ , little Steven Grant Rogers?

God, it was intoxicating.

So: the thing he’d never told Bucky was that Steve, among all the other things he’d been immediately concerned with about his new physique, had spent more moment than he’s comfortable admitting rolling his tongue in the mirror, closing his eyes and envisioning, projecting the weight of Bucky on that rough curve and making sure, making _damn sure_ that the fear in him, the fear of losing something about himself that Bucky loved, that made Bucky feel that _much_ —the fear that what had happened to him, what he’d _signed up for_ would have taken away some part of him that made him fit to Bucky, around and inside and between and pressed tight; the idea that Steve was different in ways that would shift their shapes too much so that the way they were made for one another, the way they fit like bones, or breath in a lung, well.

Steve had sighed maybe deepest, when he could finally evidence the fact that neither science nor providence; not god or man or anything beyond or between could rip him away from how he was made for Bucky Barnes, down to his _soul_.

“Stevie,” Bucky breathes, just then, and Steve breathes too, in and out and around Bucky’s balls, lips shaped in a circle around them in turns as he licks and traces and holds up, lets loose to fall: Buck’s hands are in Steve’s hair and Steve moans when Bucky pulls, the vibration shaking up Bucky’s spine, too, and that’s when Steve knows it’s time to switch gears, to give Bucky something that Steve learned for him, from him: to be gentle. To wring pleasure _just so_ , and to be so delicate where it’s so precarious and yet so rewarding, so intense: because the real truth of it all is that when Abraham picked him, Steve knew in the tone, in the look in his eyes what he saw in Steve, what he meant by a “good man” and the fact of the matter is that Steve _was_ a good man, for the part, had been born and raised as Sarah Rogers’ son and could be no less, but a sense of the compassion Abraham saw in him, saw in what it meant to _be_ good also meant a sense of the gentle, of the careful, of the warmth in your chest when you feel something so deep and life-altering, despite being so small a thing to anyone else. Steve could appreciate the little things, sure.

But it was Bucky Barnes, and Bucky Barnes alone who taught him how to be _gentle_. How to handle with care. Because when Steve was weak— _never weak, Steve_ , Bucky’s voice from so long ago is still so clear in Steve’s head; _it’s not about how big y’are, but how you use whatcha got, yeah?_ —but before; _before_ , Steve didn’t fully understand the difference between being weak and being gentle, or else, not the way Bucky’d known his whole life, as much when James barnes was as small and scrappy as when he’d passed puberty and filled out all bronze-tanned and gorgeous as ever. Bucky was the one with the softer heart, ready and waiting and willing to hurt if it meant taking that hurt away from someone else. He called Steve on the carpet for much the same thing but he’d always had it backwards, wore blinders too often where Steve was concerned, in Steve’s favor, and then another set against himself. 

In whatever fullness of “good” Steve had once had, and still did? It was Bucky, through and through, who’d spiralled into Steve’s DNA before any serum and taught him, moment by moment of their entire lives.

And so: it’s with gentleness, and purpose, that Steve purses his lips, first, and teases: fits them in an ‘o’ as full around Bucky’s sac as he can and tugs, relishes the gasp it elicits from Bucky’s throat, half-formed, pulls just the right amount that borders on pain but tips toward pleasure every time before he lets it spring back, dragging against his nose in the motion. And then he does it again. And again, and again until Bucky’s keening, until Bucky’s thighs are taught beneath Steve’s palms where he holds fast.

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky gasps, and Steve grins, because he’s just getting started.

He gives the most subtle, the most practiced of a slip of the blunts of his front teeth: only those, and only just, because it makes Buck arch violently for the sensation. He curls his lips to shield any sharpness more than what Bucky craves, long having established what he loves and where it tips wrong: Steve takes his rolled-back lips and mouths at Bucky’s left testicle, tongues it, puts pressure that makes Bucky’s dick twitch against Steve’s cheekbone before Steve pulls down again, just that side and Bucky moans, gasps as Steve lets go with a pop and then bumps his nose against the sensitized skin before he switches sides, before he switches tactics and starts suckling, little purses of his lips to the now desperately tight skin as Bucky’s breath starts to hitch, and Steve goes back to that line that’s nearly pulled too taut to find save that Steve could find anything on Bucky’s body, anything of Bucky’s _being_ blind and senseless. He goes back to that line that fits the tightest, slenderst coil of his rolled tongue and makes a ridge of it again with the smallest little pecks, so deliberate and gentle and yet panting it causes, the tightening of Bucky’s hands in Steve’s hair as he sucks tiny welts, infinitesimal bruises to the skin just to tease the blood to the surface just a little bit more, just for _him_ —

Steve comes just from rutting absently and the sounds Bucky makes, soon after Bucky himself spills against the side of Steve’s face, and they’re both short of breath for it, but Steve’s fingers are already cupping Bucky’s balls, running up Bucky’s shaft with one hand, and cleaning his jaw with the other only to suck pearly-wet fingers between his raw, swollen lips, watching Bucky’s eyes dilate even as his chest still heaves and oh, yes.

That there’s a job well done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **posted on behalf of the author while they’re in COVID quarantine; edits and comment replies will be delayed**


End file.
